McKean 01 The Jihad Virus

by Thomas Hopp

  The man came at us, shouting a long string of curses in Arabic, and covering us at chest level as we rose. He yanked Mike’s gun from its holster and then stepped back, covering us. His face lit with a cruel smile. “Infidels in our midst,” he said haughtily. He eyed us narrowly for a moment, pointing the gun from one chest to the next as if shooting us was his first impulse. When the snub nose of his pistol drifted across my midsection, I got a premonition of a bullet tearing through my heart. But something restrained him. A smile rippled across his lips, which were framed by a trimmed black mustache and goatee, set on a chiseled face with refined Arabian features. He was as handsome as the woman - who now joined him - was beautiful. He flashed a perfectly white, triumphant smile, and waved us inside the room with the pistol. As we passed him he frisked us, one-handed, but found no more guns.

  The woman spoke to him in Arabic-inflected English. “I came from the house, Massoud. I came to see what was upsetting my horses. I saw these men go in here and I followed them.”

  “You did well, Jameela,” said Massoud.

  The woman’s dark, Cleopatran eyes burned angrily into mine for a moment. Her dark brows drew into a scowl. And then she glanced around the room, and her expression began to change. Those pharaonic eyes grew wide when she spotted the redhead. She went to have a close look at the unconscious woman, and then turned to the white-robed men with a look of disgust and horror. “What are you doing, Dr. Taleed?” A quavering note of fear had crept into her voice.

  Of the two men, one was slightly taller, hefty, fat-cheeked, and wearing a full but short-cropped black beard that covered a receding chin. But it was the shorter of the two men who responded to the name Taleed. He was a small, weasel-like, hatched-nosed man with beady black eyes and a naturally jittery manner to match his weasel looks. His beard was sparse and cropped in such a way that gray hairs bristled around his mouth, giving him a scruffy, thuggish look despite his white ghutra and thawb gown. He raised both hands in a wait-a-minute gesture. “That girl is immaterial. Thanks be to Allah that you ignored the sign, which warned you to keep out of here. You have caught these infidels, Jameela, before they could ruin our holy mission.”

  Fear seemed to leave Jameela, and the Cleopatran scowl returned to her face. “What sort of evil do you do here, Dr. Taleed? This American woman is sick.”

  “Sick indeed.” The doctor puffed like a bantam rooster. “She carries my smallpox virus, which will bring this blasphemous nation to its knees!”

  Jameela gasped as if comprehending a great horror for the first time. Far from appeased by the doctor’s statement, she flushed red with anger. Her sense of horror changed to outrage as the meaning of Taleed’s words sank in.

  “But I will not stand for this!” She stamped a booted foot. “This is Satan’s work!”

  The doctor smiled reassuringly at her. “On the contrary. It is Allah’s work.”

  “You must stop this!” Jameela exclaimed. “It is murder.” She said this with such conviction that I was mesmerized by the fire flashing in her dark eyes.

  The doctor said condescendingly, “It is not the place of women to question the doings of men. And now that you have seen what we do here, Jameela, we must make sure that you, too, will keep our little secret.”

  “Keep your secret!” She glanced around the room. “What will you do - ?” Massoud took a step toward her, as did the doctor. She shrank away from them. “Will you imprison me here in this barn? I am already as good as a prisoner on this ranch!”

  “The Sheik will decide,” Massoud said coldly.

  A look of disgust spread over her face. “If this is the Sheik’s idea - ” she pointed emphatically at the captive woman, ” - then he is a monster. Only Satan could think of something so cruel.”

  Massoud had heard enough. “You will not speak of the great man that way!” He slapped her hard across the face with the back of his left hand. The force of the blow knocked her off her feet.

  As I saw her tumble to the floor, a change happened in me. Something in the bestiality of the man’s act, the violence toward a woman, the stunned expression on her face when she looked up - and the dark, Arabian beauty of that face - caught me unprepared. Adrenaline surged. I leaped at Massoud with a roar like a lion. I grabbed the gun with my left hand and closed the fingers of my right around his windpipe. I squeezed with all my might, choking off his breath. The gun discharged and a slug smacked into the ceiling, but I grappled a thumb into the trigger mechanism to stop him from firing again. I pressed my fingers into his throat until his eyes bugged out. His cruel sneer gave way to a misshapen grimace. We struggled against each other silently, while his face went purple. I gained the advantage as his strength faded, and I pried the gun from his grip with every intention of using it on him. But just as I got the pistol free, the doctor raised a club-sized piece of wood and swung it at my head. So intent was I on finishing my opponent that I failed to dodge the blow. My vision exploded in a burst of white light. My consciousness blanked and I collapsed to the floor beside the woman I had tried to defend.

  Chapter 8

  When I woke up, I was strapped into a heavy chair like the one holding the redheaded girl. Mike was strapped into a chair on my left and Peyton McKean was shackled beyond him. The effects of the marijuana had faded, but heart-pounding fear pulsed through me. I looked around groggily for Jameela, but she was gone. Our three male captors were conversing quietly in Arabic, with Dr. Taleed at the center of the conversation. He eyed us as he spoke, but he didn’t afford us the dignity of humans. He discussed us arrogantly, as if we were cattle to him, lambs ready for the slaughter.

  I leaned forward, looking down our short row of chairs at McKean. “Is your adrenaline pumping yet, Peyton?”

  He turned his head to me sharply, as if snapping out of a deep reverie. “What’s that?”

  “You said lab work didn’t get your adrenaline pumping. How’s this doing?”

  “Oh,” he remarked thoughtfully. “Quite nicely.”

  Dr. Taleed approached us and inspected McKean’s face for a moment. “Peyton,” he said. “You look familiar. But I can’t quite place you. What is your surname?”

  “McKean.”

  “Ah,” said Taleed. “A coworker of Dr. Holloman, the maker of the Congo River vaccine. You attended him at his lecture at Cambridge University, did you not?”

  “I wrote his lecture,” said McKean. “And he brought me along to cover any questions he couldn’t answer.”

  “I was in England, looking after some, er, virological matters there,” said Taleed. “Rafiq,” he gestured at his assistant, “and I met you and Doctor Holloman at the reception after the lecture. We spoke about epidemics. Do you recall? Your opinion that smallpox is the most dangerous of organisms helped me make my choice.”

  McKean stared at him disdainfully. “There were hundreds of scientists at that reception. I’m afraid your face is not familiar, nor your name. Taleed, is it?”

  “Abul Rahman al Taleed,” replied the doctor. “A humble researcher, unworthy of your notice. Like most who work for Allah, I have labored in obscurity. Recognition for my work will come on the Day of Judgment.”

  McKean pointed his long nose at the sick woman’s arm. “From the looks of it,” he muttered, “you’ll be bound for Hell on that day.”

  Taleed chuckled forbearingly. “Believe as you wish, Doctor McKean. I see myself doing Allah’s will in jihad.”

  “This is barbaric,” I said.

  Neither man acknowledged my statement, but McKean said, “I’m mystified, Taleed. Why not cultivate the virus in cell culture? Why use humans?”

  “A wise question,” the weasel-faced man admitted. “As you have guessed, we would rather grow the organisms in culture. But sadly, that is impossible.”

  “Why?”

  “It seems Allah has guided my work too well. You see, Dr. Peyton McKean, my genetic alterations of the virus have created a super organism. As with all prodigies - perhaps yourself included - th
e virus has weaknesses directly related to its strengths. The virus is now so highly adapted to human victims that it no longer can grow in cell culture. It has become, through the grace of Allah, perfectly adapted to its holy mission. It must grow in living human flesh. It will not grow anywhere else. This blessing has caused us some difficulties in transporting and passing the virus along.”

  “Forgive me,” McKean muttered, “if I’m unsympathetic.”

  Taleed ignored the remark. “This virus is my crowning accomplishment. See how it spreads outward from the inoculation wound?”

  McKean glanced at the girl’s arm, as did I. The rash of spots was thickest near the gash.

  “It always grows that way,” said Taleed. “From the wound outward. Are you familiar with the concept of progressive vaccinia, Dr. McKean?”

  “Answer: yes. Some individuals contract the condition from a dose of the standard smallpox vaccine.”

  “Yes.” Taleed’s eyes lit like a vampire’s in sight of blood. “In a normal vaccination, a single pock appears on the arm and heals with the coming of immunity. In progressive vaccinia, that one pock multiplies, spreading across the body until the victim is literally eaten alive.”

  “A perverse outcome,” McKean muttered. “The vaccine consumes the very person the it was meant to protect.”

  Taleed observed McKean closely. “You are well versed,” he said. “What caused you to take such an interest in smallpox?”

  McKean’s face remained deadpan. “Let’s just say I like to stay current in all things virological. Smallpox is…intriguing.”

  “Yes, most intriguing,” Taleed replied. “In my humble engineering experiments with this virus, I found that all the prisoners we inoculated suffered this outcome, which you have called perverse. They died like this girl is dying. Even those already immunized with the old smallpox vaccine. None were safe.”

  “That explains Fenton,” said McKean.

  “Ah, yes,” said Taleed. “The unfortunate customs inspector. I was in that car, as was Rafiq, and Massoud, our driver. Our smallpox carrier, one of Massoud’s many girlfriends, was in the back seat, heavily sedated.”

  “The missing Vancouver woman,” I said.

  “Yes,” Taleed confirmed. “We told the inspector she was dead drunk. He was suspicious, of course, but he had no other reason to detain us. He searched the automobile thoroughly, but found nothing. Our only cargo was the girl herself, and the virus growing within her arm. But the wound was carefully bandaged and covered by the sleeve of her coat. Clever of us, don’t you think?”

  “Diabolically so,” McKean growled.

  “Diabolically? You suggest Satan was on our side?”

  McKean stared at him without comment. After a moment of meeting McKean’s steady gaze, Taleed’s beady weasel eyes glanced to the floor. Then he muttered, mockingly, “It is a pity I cannot let you return to your laboratories. Perhaps you could save yourself from this virus before it consumes you. It would amuse me to imagine you trying.”

  McKean said nothing, sitting tight on information that would have shocked the doctor - that an attempt to make a vaccine was already underway. After a long moment, McKean said in measured tones, “Someone will come up with a vaccine sooner or later.”

  Taleed laughed sardonically. “Later, Dr. McKean. Much later. Too late for you - and America.” He leaned near McKean’s face and hissed like a cobra, “Do you wonder why my companions and I have no fear of the virus?”

  McKean answered coolly. “I assume you’ve made some sort of vaccine for yourself. Formaldehyde-killed virus, unless I miss my guess.”

  “You guess well,” said Taleed. He straightened and threw the tails of his Arab headdress over his shoulders. “When I first engineered the virus, two years ago, I made a small amount of vaccine from it, which now protects those of us who work for Sheik Abdul-Ghazi.”

  He was about to say more, but hushed when two other men entered the room.

  The first swept in with a flourish of black-and-white Arabian robes. Scowling, gray-bearded, and wearing a white turban, he had an imperious air.

  “The Sheik,” muttered Mike.

  Taleed bowed and remained half-bent as the Sheik approached. Rafiq and Massoud showed even greater humility, bending so low I thought they were about to throw themselves at the man’s black-sandaled feet.

  I had seen only the Sheik’s back at the window of the house. Now, I got a better look at his face. His untrimmed long beard of stringy black hair was flecked with gray and blazed with a white swath of chin whiskers. The small mouth and wrinkles at each side of his hooked, crooked nose gave him a permanent sneer. His eyes met mine briefly and a chill ran through me. His bottomless black pupils glowered under beetling dark brows. Stray hairs on his cheekbones gave a bestial look to his face. His coal-black eyes were sunken, and underlain by baggy pouches of dark, wrinkled skin. The whites of his eyes were stained a sickly brownish yellow. His lower lip drooped, a purplish, soft, mushy appendage, while the rest of his mouth seemed pinched. His jaundiced and waxy yellow skin, stretched tautly across protruding cheekbones and hooked nose, convinced me he was an unhealthy man.

  He made a motion with upturned palms indicating that the men should rise. The fingers of both hands were decked in multiple jeweled rings. His wrists were circled by gold and silver bracelets so numerous and weighty that I was surprised he could lift his arms. The gold rattled as he folded his hands piously in front of his white thawb gown, over which a gold-faced belt held a curved jambiya dagger at the center of his thin belly. The knife handle and scabbard were inlaid with dazzling jewels.

  The other newcomer was Sheriff Barker. Hatless and clean-shaven, dressed in his green-and-beige uniform, he was a stark contrast to the Sheik. His pale, freckled faced was a standout among his Arab companions. He came near and leaned over Mike, his blue eyes lit with cold delight. “You had to stick your nose where it didn’t belong, didn’t you, Mikey?” he said softly. “I tried to warn you off, but you just didn’t get it. Now I’ll have to watch you die.” He straightened, resting his fists on his hips in a tough-cop stance. His jaws worked continually on a piece of gum. The temple muscles rippling under the blond bristles of his close-cropped, military-style hair, disgusted me.

  Mike glared at him. “You’re a whole new kinda pig.”

  The Sheriff grinned. “Hey, Mikey!” he hissed, leaning closer and working his gum harder. “You s’pose your wife will mind having a gentleman caller after you’re gone? If she survives the epidemic, that is?”

  Mike strained at his shackles. “If you touch Mary - “

  “You’ll what?” the Sheriff sneered. “You’ll be dead, that’s what. And I’ll be rich.”

  Mike growled like an animal. He struggled to raise his arms, but straps held his wrists and elbows tightly to the chair.

  The Sheik took an interest in the exchange. “Please, Sheriff Barker,” he said in Arab-inflected English. “Don’t provoke him. He needs his strength to produce for us.”

  “Produce what?” Mike muttered.

  “Smallpox virus,” the Sheik replied, smiling with long teeth that were yellowed by smoking. “You see, my unfortunate, nosy neighbor, you and your friends are part of our plan now.”

  “You snake!” Mike muttered, unafraid of the Sheik’s penetrating gaze.

  “Snake indeed,” the Sheik replied. “I am a cobra whose venom works Allah’s will. I will poison America until she crumbles to dust.” He turned and clapped his hands twice, clattering his jewelry. In response, Taleed and his assistant went to a wheeled tray-table that was covered with a blue absorbent pad, on which were an assortment of bottles, vials and medical gadgets. From among them, Taleed lifted a jambiya dagger much like the Sheik’s but lacking jewels, and drew it from its sheath. As he came toward us with the knife, he purred, “Why use a syringe, when jihad is best accomplished with a weapon?”

  Rafiq pulled back the sleeve from the unconscious redhead’s left forearm, exposing the full length of the ga
sh, and Taleed drew the flat of the knife-tip across the sores several times, as if using a whetstone. Smears of yellowish liquid from the smallpox pustules beaded on the blade.

  The Sheik was pleased. “Allah sent you to us, in his all-seeing wisdom.”

  “How do you figure?” McKean muttered.

  “Look at this girl.” Abdul-Ghazi approached the redhead and stroked the matted, sweat-drenched hair on her temple. She responded with a faint, gurgling moan. “Poor little harlot,” he said to her in mock sympathy. “Massoud picked you up in a blasphemous nightclub, where alcoholic drink was served and men danced with women. You were too weakened by your debauched life to last as long as we expected. You are already dying, too soon, too soon, my dear.” He stroked her cheek in mock sympathy, and then turned to us.

  “We feared the virus would die with this woman. But see what Allah has provided?” He spread his bejeweled hands to indicate the three of us. “New vessels to carry forward my army of jihad viruses.”

  Dr. Taleed inspected the blade’s moist tip. “A nice inoculum,” he said. He turned to me first, because I was nearest to the girl. Rafiq rolled back my left shirtsleeve, exposing the skin of my forearm. I struggled, knowing what was coming. “Allahu akbar!” the Sheik muttered, as Taleed slowly brought the blade down. I tried to wriggle my arm away, but tight leather straps at the wrist and elbow held it securely. As the tip of the knife touched my skin just above the wrist, sweat broke over my brow and a chill ran the length of my body.

  With a practiced hand, Taleed drew the sharp tip of the dagger along my forearm, incising a sinuous gash from my wrist almost to my elbow. I cried out through clenched teeth at the pain of the wound. Blood welled up along the undulations of the cut and trickled down my arm, dripping onto the chair and the floor. The two men paid little attention to the blood or my stifled cries. They returned to the girl and Taleed whetted the blade again on her pocks.

  “So much for sterile technique,” McKean muttered, as they approached Mike with the blade.