Terrorist: Three Book Boxed Set

by Phillip Strang

  Amelia, unmarried, spinsterly and in her early fifties, had failed in the wedding stakes. It had somehow passed her by. Maybe it was as a result of looking after her elderly and demanding parents as they passed from retirement to incapacity – her mother, Florence, due to dementia, her father, Samuel, due to a botched hip operation in his late sixties. It had left him confined to a wheelchair and then a severe stroke that left him paralysed down one side of his face and barely able to speak. He mumbled, and she was the only one who could understand what he was saying.

  ‘You should put them in a home,’ her sister, Samantha, would say, but somehow Amelia, a generous and caring person, always kept putting it off until next year. At the age of eighty-two, her mother passed away. Her father, heartbroken and unable to comprehend, followed six months later.

  Attractive in her younger years and wild in a casually promiscuous way, she had received plenty of offers from the local men in Missoula when she was young. One of them had been Slim Brady, although then known as Ted, a young, strapping man with a taut waistline and bulging groin that was the delight of a fair proportion of the girls in town, even her sister Samantha.

  After the death of her parents and drifting aimlessly in Missoula, everyone expressed their sadness – what with her being on her own and how she was in need of a diversion. Some of the women, well-meaning, would pass the occasional remark about what a shame it was that she was too old for children, too late for marriage.

  The reference to children disturbed her greatly. She had always wanted a child, but it was too late. As for a husband, there had been a short period in her teens when her hormones had gone into overdrive, and she had run the risk of being labelled the town bike. Now alone and with no responsibilities, she found the need, the inconvenience of a man, a take it or leave it proposition.

  Ben Dempsey ran the local petrol station, and he was the right age. He took her out a few times. She broke it off after an amorous encounter down by the lake one night. She nearly gave in, but the hormones were not strong enough, and besides, he’d had a few too many beers that night and stank of it. A flaccid member, which no amount of encouragement from her was going to rectify, did not assist.

  After that, she decided she needed to go somewhere else, somewhere different. It was a friend at the local hospital who suggested refugee work in Africa. As a result of her parents’ medical conditions, she had attended enough courses, even qualified as a home nurse. It was ten weeks later when she found herself in Africa.

  Dr Archie Peckett, ten years her junior, approached her in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya on her arrival. He asked if she would be interested in helping him to set up a camp, to be part of his team. She agreed immediately. A not altogether unpleasant-looking man, he had come from Australia to help the sick in Africa. He had seen the refugee camps elsewhere in the world, and he reckoned he could do it better. He needed a new and untarnished team and felt that Amelia was ideal.

  In time, and with no excessive demands on her emotions, deadened after so many years looking after her parents, they would occasionally take off to the coast for a week of unbridled sex under the sun. It was an amicable agreement that both seemed to thrive on.

  In the last few months, Archie had started making overtures about settling down and starting a family. She neither wanted a husband nor a family, and besides, she was too old. He always said they could adopt, and there were plenty of cute and adorable orphans in the camp; he was sure he could get permission to take one or two. It was why she had been back in Missoula, thinking it through, weighing up the pros and the cons.

  She had returned, decided to tell him that the answer was no and that a younger woman may be preferable. It was the first night back in the camp that the marks on her skin appeared. Archie regarded it as no more than a severe case of heat rash after a few weeks in the cold of Montana.

  Determined to continue her work, she could see a lot of outstanding issues to resolve. The medicine cabinets were nearly empty, half the children hadn’t been vaccinated, and a vast number of pregnant women hadn’t been examined in the last few weeks. She was determined to fix it, ill or otherwise.

  ***

  Seven days after Amelia’s return to the camp, the Director of Operations in Nairobi visited the camp one early morning before the blistering hot sun raised itself above the horizon.

  ‘There’s been a request for Amelia Brooklyn to be checked out, supposedly something to do with the smallpox epidemic in the States,’ Marjorie Sheffield said. She always wore a mask when she visited the camps, which was infrequent. No one had told her any details, which was unusual, but the request had come from the United Nations building in New York, and she had been asked to attend to it personally.

  ‘If she’s covered in sores, I’m to inform our leaders back in the States and to make sure she is moved well away from the camp. Strict quarantine is what they said.’

  ‘She’s covered in sores,’ replied Archie. ‘She was working until yesterday, but now she’s resting in bed. Do you want to see her?’

  ‘Not a chance,’ said Marjorie. ‘I’ve been told to keep well clear of her.’

  She looked at Archie. ‘How close have you been to her?’

  ‘We’ve been working together, that’s all.’

  ‘Are you still sleeping with her?’

  ‘Not since she returned. How do you know about that?’ he asked.

  ‘Everybody in Head Office knows about your trips to the coast with her. Besides, you’re both stuck out here. You need to do whatever is necessary to handle the misery and suffering of this place.’

  In two days, a full team dispatched from CDC in Atlanta arrived and conveyed Amelia to a remote and secure location. Fourteen days later her cremated remains were given to Archie in a small urn.

  By now, Archie was developing spots, as were another two to three thousand people in the camp. It was to be the start of an epidemic that was to sweep refugee camp after refugee camp, crowded city after crowded city, shanty town after shanty town. It was not going to stop until fifty percent of the population of East Africa was dead. South Africa, still a structured country, closed its borders and limited the deaths to less than twenty percent.

  The disease reached Nigeria after three weeks, thirty percent of the population were lost, the country laid waste with the dead and dying. The sprawling and chaotic metropolis that was Lagos suffered close to twelve million fatalities. Somalia ceased to become a hotspot for pirating along the coast. Most of their places of concealment wiped out, ninety-five percent in some cases.

  The population of Africa was to suffer a decline in population from over one thousand million down to four hundred million in less than a year. The emerging economies on the continent were decimated, the ability to bury the dead impossible, and the health of those remaining degenerating rapidly due to starvation while the waterways became polluted due to the floating pox-ridden bodies. It had been a continent of hope. It was to become a continent lost.

  ***

  Hussein Shafik had arrived in New York ten years previous with a degree in Mathematics from the University of Cairo and a fervent admiration of anything American. The first thing he purchased, barely before he had found temporary accommodation in the rundown building on 23rd Street in Astoria, Queens, was an American tank of a car.

  The locals called the area Little Egypt, and he did not want to be there. He wanted to be with those he wished to emulate, the white Americans. His thick accent made it difficult for him to integrate and his dark and menacing looks and the prejudice in the society against anyone new and Islamic made it impossible for him to integrate. There was always a high demand for anywhere decent to live and, as soon as they took one look at him, the place was either let, or the rent had been increased. In line with inflation, they would say.

  This wasn’t the America he had wished for or even believed existed. It was supposed to be a new nation, a nation of promise and hope, a nation that encouraged strangers to come and stay and flour
ish. It was in those first weeks that the bitterness started to appear. He had been a friendly person in Egypt, helped in large part by an all-embracing family and a teaching position at one of the best schools. There was also the promise of a professorship at the University once he had completed his thesis on sedimentary transportation rates for the Nile Delta Coast.

  He believed his academic future was secure, and then there was the possibility of a favourable marriage to his second cousin, Hala Tallawy. Always a headstrong woman with a brotherly fondness for Hussein, she eventually defied her father’s wishes and ran off with the son of a wealthy Coptic Christian businessman leaving Hussein devastated. She was beautiful, liberated, loved jewellery and expensive cars.

  Michel Bakhoum, with a father who owned one of the largest jewellery companies in Cairo, and driving the latest top of the range BMW, was an easy decision for her. Hussein Shafik had loved her, but he was destined for academia at a crusty university. The most she could expect from him was half a dozen children and endless drudgery. Bakhoum offered glamour and excitement. In the years to come, she would regret her decision. He was a philanderer, a womaniser, and a drunkard and after she had given him two sons and become fat and lumpy with sagging breasts, he ignored her without hesitation.

  In his despondency and despair after Hala’s rejection of him, Shafik made the trip to America. He imagined himself at Harvard, studying and teaching. However, bright as he was, bright enough for such an establishment, they had failed to recognise his Egyptian qualifications. He would have had to return to university in the States, complete a Bachelor’s degree and then apply to Harvard. It was all too much, and life was expensive.

  He tried for a manager’s job in the accounting department of a company not far from where he lived in Astoria, but his English, proficient and fluent, was marred by a deep guttural tone after too many Turkish cigarettes. It was not only annoying to listen to, but distinctly uncomfortable for the recipient after an eight-hour day.

  It was with a heavy heart that six months after arriving in the land of opportunity, he took employment at the rundown storage depot out near JFK. He didn’t have to speak much, the work was mundane and the company of the people, his fellow employees, acceptable. He accepted the position philosophically, believing that was all he was good for.

  Friday nights were spent with the boys at the 43 Bar and Grill on 43rd Street in Sunnyside. Then, if he had some spare money left over, he would treat himself to one of the girls in the brothel not far from the run-down building he called home. The Chinese girls were always great, but his favourite was a woman from Mexico called Rachel – at least, that was the name she used. Buxom, curvaceous, with a backside round and firm, her skills were well-honed after many years of satisfying disillusioned, disappointed men. Her round face, pronounced nose, and her complexion always reminded him of his cousin, Hala. Sometimes, in the moment of orgasm, he would shout her name, much to the amusement of the woman lying under him.

  His life, inadequate as it was, satisfied him. He had even managed to put some mag wheels on the Chevrolet Impala Wagon he’d bought the first week of his arrival. He still enjoyed the car, even if the steering was shot, the brakes, useless and the paintwork, once a bright and shiny dark blue, scratched and showing rust.

  ***

  It was on a gloomy winter’s night in Astoria when Shafik shared a table at the Egyptian restaurant he occasionally visited on Crescent Street. At work, it was burgers and chicken in a bucket, but here in the small and dingy restaurant, he could order lamb shanks, tagin beef and the stuffed grape leaves, which he loved.

  The man sitting across from him wanted to talk, Shafik did not, but the restaurant was full, and there was nowhere else he could sit.

  ‘My life in America has been a disappointment. They promise much, but they hate Arabs, and they abhor our religion,’ his overly talkative tablemate said.

  ‘My life has not been as I expected, but I accept my fate.’ Shafik preferred to concentrate on his meal, not indulge in morbid conversations. He survived by ignoring the past and the promise it had held. He no longer aspired to anything more than what he had now. As long as he could afford Rachel on a regular basis and maybe fix up his car, he remained content.

  ‘It does not have to be that way,’ said the man.

  ‘Why?’ I agree that we are second class citizens here, but what can we do?’ Having finished his meal and sipping coffee, Shafik felt more inclined to talk.

  ‘We can claim our right to be treated as equals. We can make them take us seriously.’

  ‘But how? I was an educated man, but here I am just a labourer. What can I do? What can you do?’

  ‘We make them listen. Are you interested in becoming involved?’

  ‘If it makes a difference, then maybe I am,’ Shafik said. He was not an overtly religious man and certainly not violent, although if he had caught Michel Bakhoum with Hala before she had run off with him, he would have given him a good thumping.

  ‘We meet as a group on a Monday down on 21st Street, eight in the evening,’ said his newfound friend. ‘Will you come?’

  ‘Yes, if I am free.’

  It was the start of a conversion that would take no more than a few months. The meetings at the outset, gentle, no more than a gripe session. But, gently orchestrated from afar in Afghanistan and assisted by the local Mullah, the tone became more belligerent, more religious, more focussed.

  ‘Violent struggle is the only solution; don’t you see?’ the Mullah said. ‘They wish to destroy our religion, our way of life. They aim to subjugate us, make us their slaves. We cannot allow this. We are the Children of Allah, of Islam, the chosen ones. Will you fight with us, Shafik?’

  ‘Yes, I will.’

  Shafik, now a zealot convert, had found a focus for his life and Mohammad Anwar had received congratulations from Abdul Rehmani, the Taliban leader hiding out in Afghanistan. It had been Anwar’s last conversion before his trip to Montana and his death and that of many others. Shafik remained the leader of a small group, whose function was to distribute the contents of one last crate, a crate that had been delivered some weeks earlier to the depot where he had once worked.

  Chapter 17

  ‘283 YHV. It’s a 1973 Chevrolet Impala Station Wagon registered to Hussein Shafik,’ Darius Charleston said on the phone to Ed Small.

  ‘Is there any more information on its whereabouts?’

  ‘Yes, we picked it up running a red traffic light in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. It’s the general area outlined on the map we found at his place.’

  ‘Are you heading out there?’

  ‘That’s the plan, although we’re flying blind at the present moment. It’s a vast area out there.’

  ‘Until we find that remaining crate, we’re in trouble,’ replied Ed. ‘You’ve seen the devastation around the country, although the northeast is holding up surprisingly well. A few thousand in Washington, but apart from that business goes on as normal. New York, you know about. Atlanta is just about gone now, although we seem to have protected our families. How about your ex-wife and children? I know you don’t talk about them much.’

  ‘I managed to get them on the last plane out to Bermuda. Her new husband didn’t fare so well. He had been away on business in Nevada for a couple of weeks, probably playing the crap tables and screwing the local whores. He caught the infection there, almost certainly dead by now.’

  ‘Sorry to hear about that.’

  ‘I don’t think he deserves any sorrow,’ Darius replied bitterly. ‘He used to hit her after a few drinks. She’s talking about us getting back together after this is all over.’

  ‘At least there’s some good news,’ said Ed.

  ‘Sure, but the cost has been horrendous. How many millions before this is over?’

  ‘It’s impossible to count, hundreds of millions worldwide, but have you smelt the air, seen the vegetation?’

  ‘The lack of pollution, the absence of noise, is good,’ Darius agreed. ‘T
he trip up to try and find Shafik should be relatively traffic-free although I assume every village, every town, will have set up their own vigilantes. There’s a lot of nervousness out there.’

  ‘Just show your credentials. It should be okay.’

  Darius and his team had only one focus now - to locate Hussein Shafik and his old Chevy Station Wagon. It should have been easy, but it was not. The infrastructure, the backup that they would have relied on in the past was faltering. There had been reductions in personnel numbers not only in the CIA but in business in general. Some people acted with impunity, went about their regular business, sent the children to school – if the school was still open, many weren’t.

  The majority honoured their work-related activities, just enough to buy the meagre supplies needed to sustain the household. Food and drink were becoming increasingly expensive and, even though, the President had said that profiteering and racketeering were immediate jail sentences without trial, what could the police do? They neither had the men on the street nor the jail cells to hold them, and then they would have to feed them, and who was going to pay?’

  Virtually all the cities in America were ghost towns after nightfall and, with the increasingly intermittent electrical power, dark and unwelcoming. The plants supplying the electricity, the mines supplying the power plants with coal, were all suffering from low maintenance and shortened working hours. No one was willing to risk the lives of their families due to a government directive.

  Vandalism, looting, and civil disobedience became rife, especially during the night-time hours, and the vigilantes patrolling the roads took action to curtail the decay into anarchy. Open gun fights were so common they invariably went unreported.

  ***

  Darius had assembled a team of six for the trip to find Shafik. The CIA office in New York was still functioning, although barely. He picked those who would not unduly fret over their families if the worst happened and the situation in the country escalated. The news in the last few days indicated that new infections were reducing. The numbers were down five percentage points from the week before. If the improvement continued, it was clear that the President would free up the airports and the roads and allow limited movement. It was Ed Small, squarely seated as he was in the White House who had updated Darius.