Terrorist: Three Book Boxed Set

by Phillip Strang

  ‘Do you know the name of the organisation?’ Montgomery asked, alarmed at the prospect.

  ‘The United Nations Refugee Agency. I’m pretty sure that’s what it’s called.’

  ‘Ed, follow up on this,’ Montgomery said. ‘If she’s infected a refugee colony, it will go through the African continent like a wildfire. We’ll have no hope of controlling it.’

  Two days later, Ed was preparing to send a team into Missoula, suitably kitted out in spacesuits to see if they could find where the spray had been dispatched from when he received a call from Slim.

  ‘I thought you were unable to help anymore?’

  ‘My wife died yesterday. I had to deal with the situation. This will be my last communication. I’m sure you’ll understand.’ He was close to collapse as he spoke. ‘I have an address for you.’

  ‘Okay, Slim, please give it to me.’

  ‘It’s Consignment 856683, Atlanta Truckers, 1601 Cumberland Highway, Atlanta, Georgia. It says medical equipment on the crate.’

  The Police Chief’s last communication gave Ed Small the first concrete lead since the release of the virus in Montana.

  ***

  Barry Blaxland’s father was shocked when a group of four men clothed in positive pressure personnel suits entered the premises at the trucking firm where he had worked solidly for many years.

  ‘Consignment 856683, we have a Barry Blaxland as the name on the dispatching documents,’ the leader of the four said. A doctor at CDC, he had been quickly assigned by the CIA to assist in the retrieval of any additional crates.

  ‘Barry’s not here,’ said Boris Blaxland. ‘He only worked here on a temporary basis during a break from university.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘He’s at home, my home. He’s my son. What’s he done?’ Blaxland asked apprehensively.

  ‘Probably nothing, but we need to ascertain where the other nine consigned crates are. Can we see them?’

  ‘Sure, I keep meaning to move them, but the consignor paid good money for them to be stored in an open position away from direct sunlight.’

  ***

  Ten minutes later Ed Small received the confirmation he had been hoping for. ‘We’ve retrieved eight crates in good condition. We’re transporting them to CDC now, straight into our BSL-4 containment level. They’re going straight into an incinerator.’

  ‘There’s meant to be nine. Is one missing?’

  ‘One was dispatched seven days ago,’ replied the doctor. ‘We have an address in New York, somewhere near to JFK.’

  Ed immediately ended the call and contacted Montgomery.

  ‘New York, one crate,’ he said. ‘Montana, is there any more you can do?’

  ‘Not really. Slim Brady has given us all the information he can. He’s probably close to death.’

  ‘He was a good man,’ Ed Small said.

  ‘What’s the situation in Missoula?’ Montgomery asked. ‘The populace, are they calm?’

  ‘There are signs of second generation infection there now. As you predicted, it’s spreading throughout the region. The capital, Helena, is locked down, and the Governor looks as though she may be infected. Beautiful woman, but she sure had a mouth on her.’

  ‘I’m told she was competent, and she got behind us once the situation was explained.’

  ‘True. Have you seen breakouts in other parts of the country?’ Ed asked.

  ‘Reports are coming in all the time. At least ten major and probably another ninety of less severity.’

  ‘What are your predictions?’ asked Ed. ‘Are they to be as substantial as you keep saying?’

  ‘Substantial? I believe so. The military will not be able to cope. We’re now heading into diverse populations, a lot of poor areas, poorly educated in some. There’s bound to be civil disturbance, and the government will be forced to adopt some severe measures.’

  ‘Do you believe they have the gumption for this?’

  ‘What option do they have? If it’s not controlled, the population of this country is threatened, and if they release the contents of that crate in New York, catastrophic.’

  As expected, confirmation numbers continued to rise from a number of cities, Atlanta included. Jennifer Spencer, Barry Blaxland’s girlfriend, was one of the first to show the tell-tale signs of sores in the throat and on the face. Barry, who had tripped over the sprays in their crates the first day at the depot and cursed each time, was not to be infected.

  Jennifer had been in the Lenox Square Mall on Peachtree Road on that fateful Saturday when Mohammad Anwar walked around Bloomingdale’s department store, coughing and exhaling as much as possible. He had been wearing a hood to cover the pus-laden sores on his face. It was as she was paying for the wallet she was going to give Barry for his birthday, that Anwar leaned over and coughed no more than one foot from her. She had offered a choice comment about his bad manners as he walked away, nonchalantly, unconcerned.

  ‘Is there any way to ascertain the likely cities? Ed asked.

  ‘Cities with few Muslims seem the most likely, although New York would not qualify on that count,’ said Montgomery. ‘What about our people looking for Habash? Any updates?’

  ‘The only update I have is that they are in the region, although they’ve not seen Habash. It seems as if his work is done. There is only one crate in the USA to find now.’

  ‘What about England?’ Montgomery asked.

  ‘Harry Warburton and Charles Proctor are checking.’

  ‘Reports are coming in all the time,’ continued Montgomery. ‘Las Vegas is reporting infections, so is Maine, New Hampshire, North Carolina. In fact, virtually all the states in the Union have at least one or two, some have hundreds.’

  ‘If there’s not much you can do where you are, you better get over to New York.’

  ‘I agree, although this is rapidly extending beyond the ability of our government to control the situation,’ Montgomery, a note of desperation in his voice. ‘The only way now is to shut down the country, and there’s only one person who can do that.’

  ‘The President of the United States of America?’

  ‘Correct. We need to meet with him.’ Montgomery said.

  ***

  Harry Warburton and Charles Proctor had been unoccupied in England for some weeks. Events in America consumed the media, and Charles had assumed de facto responsibility for Slim and Penny Brady’s daughter after their deaths in Montana.

  ‘How is she?’ Harry asked. Proctor had phoned him after receiving an update from Ed Small.

  ‘Under the circumstances, she’s okay,’ replied Proctor. ‘You can’t expect her to be overly pleased living with us in our small three-bedroom house, but she’s making the best of it.’

  ‘What’s the situation with the virus here in the UK?’ Harry, after dealing with the pleasantries, returned to the more important issue.

  ‘There’s a crate in England. After they had found the crates in Atlanta, they were able to trace back through the Middle East. We’re going to check it out now, although we don’t have full protective gear. Are you up to a trip north?’

  ‘If it rains less than it does here, yes.’ Harry replied.

  ‘Only an American would say that. You’re English, blue blood. You know it will be raining.’

  ‘Too much time in the African sun, that’s my problem. How anyone can take this climate is beyond me.’

  ‘The crate was sent to an address in Birmingham, two hours up the motorway. I’ve arranged a team from a government lab to deal with the disposal if we find it.’

  ‘Porton Down?’ Harry asked.

  ‘Sure, they lost it before, but it’s the best place for dealing with a virus of this magnitude. They’ve tightened their controls dramatically as a result of Haberman’s actions. The director, I thought he was a decent man, has been hung out to dry, the proverbial sacrificial lamb. They always want a fall guy. I assume they’ll call it a promotion, early retirement, substantially boost his pension to keep hi
m quiet.’

  ‘All governments are devious. I suppose the British government is no different.’

  The trip took two hours and twenty minutes. The rain was constant, and there was some fog to the east of Coventry, which slowed the traffic to a crawl. The storage facilities of the Birmingham Haulage Company were a neat and tidy array of single and double garages just off Wheelwright Road. One mile from the M6 motorway, it had seemed a good idea to the boss of the haulage company, Billy O’Shee, some years previously. The land had been left generating zero income next to the substantial facilities that he had built from scratch.

  He was a self-made man and proud of it. As a trucker, he was excellent, without equal ‒ as a storage owner, disappointing. Six months after opening the storage facility, a large international company had undercut his rates, and he had not been willing to compromise. Not that it gave him much concern, the trucking company made enough money to compensate for the small loss on storage. Out of the fifty garage-like containers, only ten were used and, as long as they paid on a regular basis, he left them alone.

  A visit that rainy and damp morning by two men flashing badges gave him little concern. One was obviously a policeman. O’Shee could tell that from a cursory glance as the man showed his ID card, the other, he wasn’t sure. Stolen goods, contraband, drugs even could have been in his storage facilities. He didn’t ask what, and as long as they signed a declaration that the goods to be stored did not contain anything illegal, then his conscious was clear and legally he was not responsible.

  The men in the plastic suits that entered five minutes later, there were three of them gave him some trepidation, but he handed over the keys willingly and left them to it.

  ‘The crate has gone,’ Harry informed Ed and Montgomery over a conference call. ‘No idea when, but the owner remembers a van backing up to the rolling door about nine days ago. Apart from that, he doesn’t know.’

  ‘Then we have some serious trouble,’ said Montgomery. ‘Containing an outbreak of smallpox in a small overpopulated country will not be easy.’

  ‘Any luck with the van?’ Ed asked.

  ‘There’s CCTV at the main gate,’ Charles said. ‘I’ve got people checking it now. We should be able to get a registration number. May take some time, but the guys have been told that they’re working all night until we have a result.’

  ‘Good man,’ Ed said. ‘Let me know what you find out. Don’t worry about the time.’

  Thirteen hours later, at two in the morning, Charles was woken from a restful if troubled sleep at the A1 Hotel just up the road. It was clean and basic and close to the trucking company. The days when he could stand up to the rigours of an all-night investigation or stake-out were long gone. The young guys trawling through the videos were better equipped for that.

  ‘It’s a Ford Transit Connect, rented at Birmingham airport the same day as the crate was picked up, three men in the vehicle,’ Sergeant Kyle Ashburton said over the phone. A bright and articulate university-educated sergeant, he had joined Charles’s team in the last few days.

  ‘That makes it difficult,’ replied Charles. ‘How are we going to trace its movements? Any idea on the driver? Driving licence? Do we have much to go on?’

  ‘We have a photo scan at the rental company’s desk at the airport. We’re running it through our database. Morgan Mathur, the name on the driving licence sounds bogus.’

  ‘How did you get a photo scan?’

  ‘It was a bit of luck, really. With so many bogus rentals, the company installed a mandatory photo requirement at the terminal only two weeks ago. I’ve just spoken to the clerk. He was not too chuffed to be woken up, but when I said it was national security, he was okay.’

  ‘What did he say?’ Charles asked.

  ‘He remembers the person who rented the vehicle. Apparently, he kicked up a bit of a fuss when he was told no photo, no vehicle. Kept saying it was an infringement of his rights, big brother and so on. Eventually, he was told by one of his guys to let them take his photo so they could get on with what they had to do.’

  ‘Let’s have the clerk in the office early morning,’ Charles said.

  ‘It’s already set up. He’ll be here at seven this morning. There’s a spare room here. I thought we could use it. Save any questions if we commandeer space here, rather than at a local police station.’

  ‘You sound like a detective already.’

  Billy O’Shee, meanwhile, had willingly complied with all that Detective Inspector Charles Proctor had requested. Careful not to reveal too much, Charles had told him that those renting the container were possibly involved in terrorist acts and that any reluctance by any persons in the pursuit of their enquiries would subject them to close and detailed examination.

  O’Shee had nothing to hide apart from the two hundred and twenty thousand British pounds he had been paid cash, to transport a shipment of spent uranium from a power station up north to a tramp steamer in the southeast of the country. They would have paid over a million for all the certification and permissions, and his company had helped them out of a bind. They had been grateful, and he had become richer.

  ***

  ‘That’s him,’ Jeff Richards, the clerk from the rental company, said as he looked at the playback of the surveillance videos. He had arrived not more than ten minutes after Kyle Ashburton and Charles Proctor had spoken.

  A quick computer scan through police records revealed the renter’s correct name, courtesy of Ashburton. ‘Malik Khan, age twenty-six, born in Bradford, Yorkshire. We know this person.’

  ‘What do we know about him?’ Harry asked, just in advance of Charles.

  ‘He was implemented in an attempted bombing in Liverpool a couple of years back, the bombing was forestalled. Although we arrested a couple of them – one is doing five years, courtesy of Her Majesty’s pleasure in Brixton – we were never able to find or charge those we believed to be the ringleaders.’

  ‘And Malik Khan was one of those?’ Harry queried.

  ‘Yes, we had a house in Blackpool lined up, but by the time we broke the door down, he and his group had bolted. This is the first confirmed sighting since then.’

  ‘So where is he now? Where is the vehicle they rented at Birmingham airport?’ Charles asked.

  ‘The vehicle was never returned,’ the sergeant said forgetting that the clerk from the rental company was still in the room. ‘At least, not in one piece.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Charles asked.

  ‘It was found outside of Exeter two days later, a burnt-out shell.’

  ‘So they’re following their modus operandi, targeting areas and cities with traditionally low Islamic populations?’ Harry proffered.

  ‘Are they terrorists?’ Jeff Richards, the rental company clerk asked, intrigued by the conversation.

  ‘You shouldn’t be here, and certainly not listening in on our conversations,’ Ashburton said. ‘This is highly confidential, secret. You’re subject to the official secrets act. There’s a prison sentence if you repeat any of what you’ve heard here today.’

  ‘You’ve got my word. If you stop these lunatics, then I’m with you all the way. They come into my area where my parents have lived all their lives and turn it into a ghetto. They even built a mosque two streets away. How the local council let them get away with that, I’ll never know?’

  ‘Thanks, Jeff. We’ll call you if we need any more help,’ Charles said.

  Jeff Richards left, unfortunately not for the rental agency’s office. He knew there was money to be made, and he knew how to get it. The money to be gained outweighed the possibility of a prison sentence, and besides he hadn’t been asked to sign any official looking documents.

  The next morning’s Daily Mail newspaper confirmed to Charles, Harry and the team where the diligent Jeff Richards had headed to after he left them – the local office of one of the biggest newspapers in the country.

  There, on the front page, was the full story of Malik Khan and his history
of terrorist-related activities – the bomb he had picked up, and the location where it was to be set off, Exeter.

  Chapter 13

  Presidential Speech to the Nation.

  Fellow citizens of this great country, the United States of America. It is with a heavy heart and a sense of foreboding that I speak to you tonight.

  We have all watched over the last few weeks with horror, and with great concern, the outbreak of smallpox in the State of Montana. I am now confirming that further outbreaks of the disease have been reported throughout the country.

  Some weeks past, an executive order was given by the State Governor of Montana declaring Martial Law in that State. Governor Margaret Bailey sadly passed away two days ago. It was clearly stated by her that smallpox, a previously eradicated disease, had been confirmed in Missoula, a city of that State.

  The release of the virus was not a random event or an unfortunate accident. It was a terrorist attack by a disparate group of disillusioned persons. The disease was contained in aerosol sprays and then sprayed into areas where there had been a high concentration of people.

  We do not believe that any more attacks have occurred and that the recent confirmed cases of the disease in other cities around the country are a result of the normal movement of people.

  Smallpox is airborne. It passes from person to person by close proximity. Anyone who has passed the incubation period of the virus, approximately twelve days, and is showing visible signs of the disease is highly contagious. Their coughing or breathing on another person is sufficient to pass the disease.

  It is not for me to be alarmist, but I must give you the full facts in the hope, the belief, that all of you will act with the required propriety.

  Anyone who is confirmed with the disease must be isolated. Loved ones, caring organisations, religious institutions, hospitals, medical centres cannot do anything to help.