by Daniel Kalla
“Going where?”
“First, out of Somalia,” Sabri said with a disinterested shrug. “Then to America.”
“America?” Kabaal grimaced. “You would really go?”
Sabri sighed. “How else will we get Dr. Aziz’s virus there?”
“So we are not waiting for our ultimatum to expire?”
Sabri stared at Kabaal coolly. “Do you believe for one moment that they would come to Hargeysa looking for us if they had any intention of complying with our demands?”
“No.” Kabaal shook his head slightly and, for no reason, shuffled pieces of paper on his desk. “But I do believe in the honor of a man’s word.”
Sabri’s thick lips broke into a spiteful smile. “With the first infected carrier you dispatched, I think you conceded some of your precious honor.”
Kabaal looked up at Sabri, wondering how he had so underestimated the man behind those unreadable eyes. He nodded slowly. “Regardless, I am not going with you.”
Sabri scowled in response. “What made you think that you were ever invited?”
Anwar Aziz’s eyes went wide and he looked frantically over at Sabri. “But, Major ...”
Sabri shot out a hand to silence the scientist, but he never took his eyes off Kabaal.
Kabaal nodded calmly. He smiled at Sabri. “So, Major Abdul Sabri now leads The Brotherhood of One Nation?”
“Not just now,” Sabri said evenly. “I have done so for a long time. Your role was to finance us. We do not need your money anymore.”
Kabaal grunted a laugh. “And you, as our leader, will personally carry the Jihad to the infidel’s soil?”
Sabri picked up his rifle and threw it over his shoulder. “I will do what has to be done.”
“Do you even remember what the purpose of all of this was?” Kabaal asked.
Sabri stared back in stony silence.
“Islam!” Kabaal barked. “To preserve and protect our faith. We were going to use the one weapon at our disposal that the West did not have a superior answer for.”
“So what has changed?” Sabri asked, beginning to pace the floor like a bored sentry.
“Everything has changed! Kabaal snapped. ”Once the West saw what the virus was capable of, they were supposed to abide our request. To leave our lands. To allow us to restore leadership to the Caliphate, so the laws of Shari’ah could again prevail.” He exhaled heavily. “It is clear though that the Americans will not withdraw. And if we release Anwar’s new supervirus, who knows where it will end? Or if it ever will.” He looked down at his desk, his fervor waning. “We—I—always understood people would have to die. But this?” He held up his palms. “The virus was supposed to make the world better for us, not to destroy it.”
Sabri stopped pacing and shook his head slowly. “Hazzir Kabaal, you are a fool,” he said coolly.
Kabaal swallowed the insult without replying.
“You remind me of those armchair generals I used to work for,” Sabri hissed. “Sitting in your extravagant homes and offices. Drunk on too much food and power, and soft from pampering and wealth.” He flicked a finger at the desk and the rugs decorating the walls. “From the safety and comfort of your palaces, you send true warriors like me out to fight your battles. And then you expect us to win on your weak-hearted terms. I have news for you, Abu Lahab, there is no such thing as a bloodless Jihad.”
Kabaal digested Sabri’s sermon with little emotion. Curious but not fearful, he asked, “What do you hope to accomplish by killing possibly millions of women and children?”
“You never have understood, have you?” Sabri said with a look that bordered on pity. “We could never achieve our cause by holding America ransom like a bunch of cowardly kidnappers. The only way we will save Islam is to empower the people to rise up and fight.”
“And slaughtering leagues of women and children will accomplish that?” Kabaal asked.
Sabri nodded. “Exposing the oppressor’s weakness. That is how to inspire an uprising.”
Kabaal chuckled softly. “And Major Abdul Sabri will be known as the prophet who inspired the people?”
Sabri’s eyes narrowed. “I will be remembered long after you are forgotten,” he said in a near whisper.
The two men stared at each other while Anwar Aziz shifted nervously from foot to foot and mopped at his sweaty brow.
Finally, Sabri’s face broke into a gentler smile. “But you can serve The Brotherhood for one more important purpose, Hazzir.”
“Oh?” Kabaal said. “How is that?”
Sabri patted the rifle across his chest. “M16-2A. It is the U.S. Army’s standard assault rifle.” He lifted it off his shoulder. “A beautiful piece of machinery actually. Fires 5.56-mm bullets. Again, standard U.S. Army issue.”
“So it will look like I died at American hands. Clever.” Kabaal nodded. “What will you tell the others?”
“The truth.” Sabri shrugged. “That you shrank in the face of battle. That you were prepared to betray us at the moment of need.”
Kabaal looked over to Aziz. “Will the men believe that?”
“I ... I ... don’t know, Abu ...” the fat microbiologist stuttered in a fit of nervous twitches.
“Don’t concern yourself, Hazzir,” Sabri said soothingly. “It won’t matter for much longer.”
“To me or them?” Kabaal asked.
“Either.”
Kabaal felt overcome with a vague unsettled emotion that verged on regret. He was not afraid to face divine judgment, but he no longer assumed that Paradise awaited him.
“Stand, Hazzir,” Sabri instructed. “And walk away from the desk.”
Kabaal rose from the chair and took three steps from his desk to the wall, standing in front of his favorite Turkish rug. He stopped and looked from the terror-struck face of Aziz to the placid face of Sabri. “God is great,” Kabaal said.
Sabri pointed the rifle at him.
At the same moment as Kabaal heard three muffled pops, he fell painlessly back against the rug behind him as if a gust of wind had blown him. Sabri’s face faded away, replaced by that of his own father as a young man. His father was speaking to him, but the words were muffled as if spoken underwater.
The sound grew quiet. The room darkened.
It looked nothing like Paradise.
CHAPTER 34
WASHINGTON, D.C.
A Northeaster had swept through D.C., bringing with it a record pre-Christmas cold snap. Bundled up in jackets, gloves, and hats, Haldane and Savard ran the two blocks from her office to the Starbucks, partly out of hurry, but mainly to get out of the bitter chill.
They stepped into the coffee shop just after 8:00 A.M. Huddling at a table inside, Duncan McLeod still wore his hat and gloves. “Shite, for the first time in my life, I miss balmy old Scotland in December!” he said as they approached.
Haldane mustered a smile, but he was still preoccupied. The memories of the NSC critical incident meeting of an hour earlier reverberated in his mind, and he couldn’t shake the video images of the looming Operation Antiseptic.
Noah and Gwen made space on the table for all their winter gear before pulling up two chairs. As was their recent custom, McLeod had already bought coffees. He handed them the extra-large-sized cups.
Gwen hoisted her cup off the table and held it up. “Who can drink one of these?”
“I wanted to give you the option of soaking your feet in them, if need be.” McLeod shrugged. He looked from Savard to Haldane. “So? What’s the big news?”
Noah glanced at Gwen, wondering how McLeod knew anything since they were both sworn to secrecy. “What news, Duncan?”
McLeod squinted at Haldane. “The meeting this morning ! When I rang you at home, Anna told me you were called out to some urgent predawn get-together.”
Haldane put his coffee cup down. “Listen, Duncan ...” he began awkwardly.
McLeod slammed down his cup. “Oh, no, Haldane! After all this, you’re not going to leave me out of the loop
now?”
“This comes from on high. National security issues and all that.” Gwen held up her palms helplessly. “We have no choice in the matter.”
“Oh, that’s right,” McLeod grumbled. “I keep forgetting what a major threat to American national security one batty Scotsman could be.”
Gwen reached down and stuck a hand in her pants pocket. She pulled out her miniature cell phone, which Noah realized she must have kept on vibrate mode, because he had never heard it ring. “Gwen Savard,” she said and listened a moment. “Okay, we’re on our way.” She put the phone back in her pocket as she stood up from the table. “Noah, we have to go. Now.”
Haldane grabbed his hat and gloves and then reached over and patted McLeod on the shoulder. “Think of it this way, Duncan,” he said with a wink. “It’s one less of those godforsaken places you have to visit.”
McLeod waved them away with a swing of his arm. “Get the hell out of here. Go!” He flashed a half grin. “And for the love of Christ, stay safe!”
Haldane and Savard were led directly into the Secretary of Homeland Security’s roomy office in the Nebraska Avenue Center. “Doctors,” Ted Hart said in his hoarse tone and rose to greet them.
They stood by his desk, but he didn’t offer them seats. “Dr. Haldane, after our meeting this morning, a few members of the NSC, including the President, stayed behind to discuss the situation. We decided it would be a good idea for you to go to Somalia.”
Haldane nodded without comment.
“Once the terrorist camp is secure, of course.” Hart stopped to hack a harsh cough. ”We were hoping you would join the site survey team. Your expertise would be invaluable in assessing the state of their lab and so on.”
Haldane felt a rush of adrenaline. “Of course, Mr. Secretary.”
“Absolutely!” Gwen pointed to her chest. “We’ll both go.”
“Both?” Hart turned to Gwen with surprise. “No. No. Just Dr. Haldane.”
“Ted—” Gwen started.
Hart waved his open palms at her. “No, Gwen! You have a crucial job to perform. The country is relying on you to stay here at home and do it.”
Gwen shook her head defiantly. “Everything is unfolding here as we planned. There’s little more I can do right now except wait like everyone else.”
Hart frowned. “And what can you do over there?” he asked pointedly.
“I am a scientist, too, Ted. I know as much or more about microbiology labs than Noah does.” She stared back at Hart, her face fixed in fierce determination. “I know what we’re looking for. I feel it in my bones.”
“Gwen is right,” Haldane said. “She would be a help.”
Hart shook his head but with less authority.
Gwen looked down and spoke to the floor. “Ted, they attacked us with the unthinkable. I need to be over there to see this through. You can understand that, can’t you?”
Hart stared at her for several seconds before he sighed heavily. “Lucky for you I’ve run out of time to argue. We need to get you to Andrews Air Force Base ASAP. Your flight leaves in a half an hour.”
Gwen offered her boss a grateful smile. “We’re gone, Ted.”
Haldane had never experienced such a smooth transfer. Their limo pulled up onto the tarmac of the Andrews Air Force Base. They stepped out of the car and walked up the steps into the cabin of the C37A twin-engine jet. Two prepacked generic overnight bags awaited them. And within moments of boarding, they were airborne.
Aside from the flight crew, consisting of a pilot, a copilot, and a junior officer who functioned as a flight attendant, there were no other passengers in the spacious cabin, which wasn’t much smaller than a commercial airliner. Once at cruising altitude, the pilot’s friendly voice came over the loudspeaker. “Hi, Doctors, we’ll be cruising at close to the speed of sound, which should get us to Yemen in just over eight hours,” he said. Noah consulted his watch and did the calculation, realizing they should touch down around 12:30 A.M. local time, less than two hours before Operation Antiseptic was set to commence.
Though comfortable in the cabin, Haldane was too keyed up to sleep. Gwen sat beside him, lost in the laptop computer in front of her. He touched her shoulder. “How are you doing?” he asked.
“Good.” She smiled distractedly. “Glad to be along for the ride.”
“Nervous?”
She turned away from the computer and studied Haldane with a quizzical frown. “They won’t let us near the action.”
Haldane let his hand linger a second longer on her shoulder before pulling back. “I didn’t mean that. It’s just that it’s all coming to a head.”
“Finally,” she sighed. “I’m actually relieved. I was beginning to wonder if this would ever end.”
Haldane smiled. “As long as it ends well.”
“Yeah, that’s kind of key. Truth be told, I am nervous.” She bit her lip. “But a good nervous, you know?”
Haldane smiled, appreciating how pretty she looked at moments like these when she let her professional guard down.
“Hey!” She leaned forward and rummaged through her handbag at her foot. She brought her closed hand up to him and then turned it over, exposing a brown pill bottle. She popped the lid off to show the small yellow tablets inside.
Haldane studied the unmarked pills for a moment, before it dawned on him. “Dr. Moskor’s wonder drug?”
“Well, the wonder part is yet to be proven, but, yeah, this is a bottle of his drug, A36112. It was waiting for me on my desk in a little box with a note that said, ‘Go save the world, kid.”’ She chuckled. “Typical Isaac!”
Haldane pointed at the bottle. “Have to be a pretty small world to save it with those.”
“True.” Savard smiled and bit her lip again. “Let’s hope we never need a single pill.”
Shortly after midnight Yemeni time, Haldane stared out the window as the C37A began to descend into blackness. As he felt his ears pop, he wondered with slight apprehension where exactly in the darkness the pilot intended to land. Suddenly lights broke through the pitch-black, and he could see they were no more than a few hundred feet from a runway.
The plane landed without so much as a bump. As their plane taxied toward the hangar, Haldane noticed how active the airstrip was. To either side, they passed airplanes ranging from fighter jets to the huge Hercules-style transport planes. A long line of planes waiting for takeoff had formed in the opposite direction.
The C37A slowed to a halt beside the massive hangar. Gwen and Noah grabbed their bags and disembarked following the crew.
Standing in the humid Yemeni air—where at midnight it was easily fifty degrees warmer than Washington had been at midday—Haldane began to feel sticky. Glancing around, he could better appreciate the frantic buzz of activity. While the soldiers worked with silent determination, the noise was earsplitting. Cargo doors slammed open and shut. Jet engines fired up. Cars, trucks, and armored vehicles moved in all directions; some carried supplies while others drove into the hulls of the huge transport planes.
Haldane had never before been to an air force base, let alone one that was set to launch a critical military operation, but the sense of purpose was palpable in the air. He welled with patriotism, a rare emotion for him. When he glanced at Gwen, she appeared equally mesmerized by the sight of the mechanized bees’ nest.
An officer dressed in fatigues and matching hat drew their attention with arms waving above his head. “Drs. Savard and Haldane?” he yelled out over the noise.
Gwen gave him the thumbs-up sign.
The man waved for them to follow him. Once inside the open hangar, Haldane noticed that the level of noise dropped several decibels to simply loud.
Haldane half expected a salute, but the muscular man with square jaw, cropped hair, and deep acne scars held out a hand for them to shake. “Evening, Doctors, I’m Major Patrick O‘Toole with the Seventy-fifth Rangers Airborne, but everyone ’round here knows me as Paddy,” he said with a friendly grin. “I’m t
o be your liaison officer.”
“Gwen Savard,” she said, and shook his hand.
“Noah Haldane,” he said, meeting the crushing handshake. “But everyone around here will know me as ‘Chicken.’”
The major laughed heartily. “Glad to meet you, Chicken. You’ll fit right in.” He wheeled around and pointed to the other side of the hangar as if directing a car.
Paddy led them to a quieter comer of the hangar, where a makeshift canteen offered self-serve coffee, tea, cookies, and other snacks. “Coffee?” Paddy asked as he poured a cup from the dispenser. Nauseated from the bumpy flight and the engine fumes in the hangar, Haldane declined with a shake of his head. So did Gwen. Paddy shrugged and kept the cup for himself.
They sat down at one of several empty picnic-style tables topped with a few scattered condiments. “Are you aware of the mission details?” Paddy asked.
Gwen nodded. “We attended General Fischer’s briefing at the White House this morning.”
Paddy’s jaw dropped, impressed.
“He only gave an overview of the operation,” she hurried to add.
“Okay,” Paddy said. His expression stiffened and his tone deepened. “As you are aware, this is a modified lightning strike on the terrorist compound.” He put down his cup, and drew a circle around it with his finger. He looked from Gwen to Noah. “Modified, because not only do we need to secure the target, but we can afford zero leakage.” He ran two fingers through the air. “By that, I mean, the operation’s success is dependent on ensuring that not one single terrorist escapes the compound alive.”
Gwen shrugged at Paddy. “So how does that change the tactics of the strike?”
“Good question, ma’am.” Paddy nodded. “It slows everything down a little. We have to establish full 360-degree vision from the sky and secure the perimeter to an even tighter degree than usual.”
“So they will have more warning when the assault team does arrive?” Gwen asked.