McKean 01 The Jihad Virus

by Thomas Hopp

  McKean stared into Taleed’s beady weasel eyes, momentarily silent as if letting the whole scheme sink in. “You’re insane,” he muttered at last. “All of you.”

  Taleed turned to go, but hesitated near the doorway. “We shall see,” he muttered venomously, “who is insane.”

  He vanished, and we sat for a long time in silence. I glanced at a wall clock and was surprised to see only a half-hour had transpired since our apprehension. The time-dilating effects of the marijuana had made it seem as though an eternity of rapid-fire events had transpired.

  I drew deep, slow breaths, trying to calm my shaken nerves. But the gash on my arm and thoughts of the virus filtering deeper into my flesh kept panicky thoughts foremost in my mind. Could a vengeful Allah really be bent on destroying America? Was the Sheik a holy messenger, as he claimed? The thoughts were preposterous, but they echoed around my rattled brain like the tolling of a death knell.

  McKean, meanwhile, craned his neck to inspect our prison from floor to ceiling. His calm, contemplative manner made me realize that if the Sheik had had an inkling of the danger Dr. Peyton McKean posed to his plans, the dagger would have slit McKean’s throat, rather than inoculate him.

  I strained at the straps holding my arms, but they wouldn’t budge. “I wish you would use that brain of yours to get us out of here,” I said to McKean, “before we end up like that redhead.”

  He made no immediate reply. He stared upward through the whitewashed rafters as if his eyes, and his prodigious mind, were fixated on some celestial object a million miles away.

  “Sometimes,” he murmured, “the simplest problems are the most insoluble.”

  Chapter 9

  Apart from aimlessly staring at the whitewashed slat walls of the room, there was nothing to do but watch the clock as the minutes and hours progressed slowly toward a dire future. We had been captured sometime just past 10 pm, but midnight came and went while we passed the time in sporadic, pointless conversations or long bouts of silence. Peyton McKean talked more about the virus than he did about escape. Maybe he was right to do so. Our position seemed hopeless. Our fate seemed sealed. As time progressed through the small hours of the night, my despair grew by tiny increments each time I glanced at the gash on my forearm. The blood dried to cracked streaks of blackish red, but my imagination painted pictures at the cellular level. I could almost feel the viruses percolating through my flesh, moving into my bloodstream like miniature terrorist infiltrators, each little speck of DNA-and-protein able to proliferate into a thousand identical copies after sabotaging just one of my body’s cells. It appalled me that I would produce a new legion of viruses just as the dead girl had, and spawn another truckload of jihadis. Already, I could imagine thousands of viruses tumbling out of dying cells in my wound, moving into the fluid spaces under my skin, attacking new cells, and co-opting my substance into theirs.

  Our captors had bound us tightly with heavy leather horse straps that constrained our chests, pressed us flat against the backs of our chairs, and kept our upper bodies from moving side-to-side or forward or back. Pinioned as I was, the view of my injured forearm was inescapable. I am sure that if I could have bent my head low enough, I would have tried to chew my own arm off at the elbow, so great was my fear of what was incubating under my skin.

  Sometime past 4 am, my head slumped forward. I fell into exhausted sleep.

  “Wake up!”

  The voice was feminine, melodious, angelic - and concerned. “Wake up!” I lifted my head and blinked my eyes. Long dark hair fell on either side of my face, smelling faintly of jasmine. Two dark eyes, incredibly beautiful, loomed incredibly near. A thrill raced through me.

  “Jameela!” I said in a voice that croaked hoarsely.

  “Shhh,” she cautioned under her breath. “Massoud and Doctor Taleed may be nearby.” Her fingers worked quickly to undo the buckle of the horse strap holding my chest. As she loosened the shackles on my arms, I watched her in dumb wonder. A dark-haired angel had come to my rescue.

  I didn’t fully awaken until she had freed both my arms and unbound my ankles. I stood, shakily, as she unshackled McKean, keeping a nervous eye on the front door as she worked. “If they come now,” she whispered, “we are lost.”

  McKean watched all this in his detached, academic manner. “It must be near sunrise,” he said as he stood up. “If we don’t get away quickly we’ll be in broad daylight.”

  “I have thought of that,” said Jameela. “Come.”

  We followed her out the door of the office, through the poultry facility, and out into the dim, pre-dawn light. She made for the horse barn and McKean and I followed, keeping a tight watch on the houses, which were in direct line-of-sight now that the white truck and vans were gone. I expected someone to discover us at any moment.

  “You can’t leave by the main road,” said Jameela as we approached the barn. “The guard near the highway would spot you for sure.”

  “Whichever way we go,” said McKean in a hushed voice, “we had better hurry.” He nodded toward the eastern horizon where the sun would break across the ridges within minutes.

  “I have a plan,” said Jameela, opening the doors of the horse barn.

  “But why are you helping us?” I asked as we followed her in.

  “Right is right and wrong is wrong,” she said, moving to a tack post between two of the stalls and taking down two bridles. They were no ordinary bridles, but the expensive trappings of pampered pets, made of polished black leather with silver studs bearing what looked like real diamonds and emeralds.

  “Which of you rides best?” she asked. McKean and I exchanged blank glances.

  “I’ve ridden before,” I said.

  “Can you handle a stallion?” She held a bridle out to me.

  “I think so.”

  Her dark eyes searched my face as if she were looking at me for the first time. “You will take Majid. He is hardest to control.”

  She led us through a side door to a gate that bordered the roadway in front of the barn. The black and white horses calmly watched her swing the gate open.

  She went to the mare and stroked her pink nose. “Zahirah, my jewel,” she said. “You look content this morning.”

  Jameela bridled the mare easily, but I had trouble with the stallion. He tossed his head when I tried to put his bridle on, refusing to allow me to put the straps over his ears.

  “Majid,” Jameela crooned in a melodious voice. “You must let this man ride you.” She took the bridle from my hands and completed the job with easy fluid movements. She set the bit in Majid’s mouth and said to him, “These men need our help. Be a good boy for me this morning, please?”

  Her sweet intonations calmed the black stallion. He stopped tossing his head, but he eyed me warily as if he wanted to resist what was coming. She stroked his neck several times, and he seemed compelled to behave by his mistress’s touch.

  “What about saddles?” I asked.

  “No time,” said Jameela. “You won’t need them, if you get away without being spotted.” She pointed across the road and the pasture beyond that, to a ridgeline in the west. “There is a gate high up beyond that hill. You can get through the fence there and go to your friend’s house.”

  She looked at McKean, who stared at the mare’s back as if uncertain how to get on. “You can ride, can’t you?” she asked.

  “Answer: uh, yes,” he replied. “I’ve sat a horse on several occasions.”

  “Zahirah is gentle,” said Jameela. “She will mind you.”

  She knit her fingers and offered McKean a leg up. He straddled the mare’s back awkwardly on his belly before righting himself.

  Impatient to get moving, I grasped the stallion’s shoulder, kicked my leg high and vaulted onto his back, propelled by adrenaline. As I sat upright, Majid reared and let out a whinny. I tugged the reins to settle him, but he pranced and huffed until Jameela came to his head with a few more soothing words. He calmed as he became accustomed to my weight,
but he chomped noisily at the bit.

  Suddenly, there was a shout from the direction of the bunkhouse. The handsome man, Massoud, came off the front porch and sprinted toward us.

  “We have been seen!” Jameela cried, suddenly terrified.

  Massoud called out in Arabic to warn the others inside the big house. Then he raised a pistol and a loud crack and puff of smoke made his intentions clear.

  Jameela grasped the mare’s halter and led McKean through the gate. “Ride, quickly!” she said, slapping the mare’s rump to make her bolt forward. “The whole household will be after you in seconds!”

  Majid followed the mare through the gate, his hooves clattering on the asphalt drive. As Massoud approached at a dead run and fired another shot, three more men appeared on the porch of the big house and hurried down the steps, drawing handguns.

  “Hurry!” Jameela urged, spanking the stallion on the rump. He lunged forward, but a sudden thought made me rein him back.

  “What about you?” I called to Jameela. “They’ve seen you helping us. You’re not safe here!”

  She looked as though that thought hadn’t occurred to her. Her eyes widened. Gauging her stricken expression, I didn’t hesitate. I reined Majid around in a tight circle and leaned down. “Here!” I shouted, holding out my right hand. “You’re coming with us!”

  She stood frozen for a moment. She stared into my face with an astonishing mix of emotions filling those dark eyes: fear, doubt, and panic. And then came resolve, and - I thought - maybe even a hint of attraction. She reached out her hand.

  Massoud’s pistol sounded again, and a bullet scuddered past my ear.

  I took her hand, clenched hard and pulled her toward me with all my might, just as Majid bolted. Propelled by the stallion’s power and the tug of my hand, Jameela came free of the ground. Her body swung in an arc that somehow set her onto Majid’s back behind me. She threw her arms around me as the stallion broke into a full gallop. With hooves clattering the pavement louder than the pistol shots, Majid thundered across the road and onto the grassy field, where he quickly caught up to McKean and the mare. As the two horses raced toward the ridge, Massoud’s shouts and shots grew fainter.

  I glanced over my shoulder. “We’re not out of this yet!” I cried. The four men were sprinting toward the cars parked beside the house.

  In seconds, the two black Jeep Cherokees were racing up the slope after us. Our head start was no more than a quarter mile at best. One Jeep came straight after us over the uneven ground, while the other followed a fence-line road angling away to our left.

  We galloped over the top of a low rise, losing sight of both Jeeps. But one came airborne over a low hillock a second later, hot on our tails.

  The passenger in that Jeep leveled a handgun and fired. A bullet whizzed past us. An odd thought flashed across my mind. To die right now would be an incredible way to go - my horse’s black mane dancing high with each lunge of his gallop, a beautiful woman pressing herself to me, her dark hair flowing like the horse’s mane. The sensation of our bodies moving together in the cadence of the gallop thrilled me, despite all. With her body so close to mine, a single bullet could have pierced both our hearts, sending us together into the hereafter - a far better death than what the Sheik had planned.

  But the beauty behind me was a better reason to live than to die. All fear suddenly fled and I rode confidently, slapping the reins against Majid’s neck, urging him to greater speed. I searched the land ahead for the best route, but two paths seemed to diverge. A small ridge ran ahead of us with swales on the left and right. Majid had the bit in his teeth and his feet tore up the ground. He would quickly dictate our path unless I made the choice for him.

  “Which way?” I called to Jameela over my shoulder.

  “To the left,” she cried. I lay the reins over and guided Majid up the leftward swale. Zahirah and McKean followed. The Jeep tailing us was falling behind as the land became more uneven. The horses flew over the rugged ground with agility born of their breeding, but the Jeep bounded erratically. It bounced across a gully and then tumbled, rolling over in a cloud of dust.

  “Yeah!” I cried. “One down.”

  Majid was lathered from the exertion of galloping uphill with his heavy load, but I pressed him hard with heels to his ribs. “We’re getting away clean,” I shouted.

  “Don’t be so sure,” Jameela cautioned. “Where is the other car?”

  We had our answer when Majid cleared the top of the swale. The other Jeep was a hundred yards away on the left, slightly ahead of us and paralleling the wire lattice fence we had crossed to get onto the ranch. The gravel fence-line road leveled the rough terrain that had wrecked the other Jeep.

  As our mounts raced onto a flat pasture above the ridge and galloped toward the gate, I gauged the Jeep’s speed. It was closing on the gate faster than our horses. We would all meet at the point where Jameela intended for us to escape. The race was already lost. “They’re cutting us off,” I called over my shoulder. “What now?”

  The passenger in the Jeep stuck a machinegun pistol out his window and opened up at a hundred yards distance.

  “To the left,” Jameela shouted over the gun’s roar, “behind them.” I reined Majid hard to the left and Zahirah followed, racing for a point on the fence that we could reach before the Jeep could turn and come after us. I scanned the fence for a gate, but saw none.

  “What’s your plan?” I called back to her.

  “Ride there!” Jameela pointed to a place on the fence line where a hummock of boulder-strewn land rose alongside the fence, short of overtopping it by only inches. Beyond the fence lay another hummock of slightly lesser height.

  “You want to jump that?”

  “You have a better idea?” She wrapped her arms around me tighter.

  The Jeep skidded to a halt and then began a turn that sent it lurching over the rough ground beside the road. The machine pistol rat-tatted, but the jostling of the Jeep ruined the gunman’s aim. As our mounts raced up the near side of the hummock and sprinted to the brink, I heard a shout of frustration from the shooter. Our horses vaulted one after the other, their black and white bodies arcing above the fence and touching down on the far hummock with easy grace. Neither Jameela nor I so much as lost our balance. McKean’s lanky body lurched far forward, but he stayed in place. As the horses clattered down the rocky surface of the far-side hummock, I let out a loud “yee-haw!” of triumph and reined my mount toward a stand of stunted pine trees. We thundered behind their cover as the machine pistol sounded again, now hopelessly distant.

  I reined Majid behind the cover of the trees and down the far side of the ridge. In seconds we were out of sight of the Jeep and its occupants. I slowed Majid to a canter and then to a walk.

  “We did it!” Jameela called out in disbelief. “We got away.”

  “But not for long,” McKean cautioned, coming alongside us as we descended a dry wash. “We’ve got to get out of this valley on something faster than horses. No offense, Zahirah.” He patted the mare’s lathery withers.

  We loped our mounts downhill under cover of a sparse scrub woodland. A lack of pursuing engine noise assured us that the Jeep was unable to follow directly. A dry streambed soon led us to Mike’s trailer.

  Jameela slid off Majid’s back and I dismounted after her. McKean dropped to the ground and took his cell phone from its clip. He tried keying it, but shook his head. “Reception is…nonexistent.”

  “Mike might have a land line,” I suggested.

  “No time for that.”

  “Why?”

  McKean nodded toward the driveway.

  Following his eyes, I saw a car barreling toward us on Mike’s drive and throwing up a cloud of dust.

  It was Sheriff Barker’s squad car.

  Chapter 10

  “Quick!” McKean called, dashing to the Mustang. “Get us out of here!”

  Jameela hesitated. “My horses - ” she began, but I grabbed her hand and pulled her
toward the car.

  “They’ll have to find their own way home,” I said, opening the door and shoving, more than helping, her into the back seat. I got in behind the wheel just as the squad car scratched to a halt on the gravel, nose-to-nose with the Mustang. The horses reared and bolted away. I jammed the key in the slot and cranked the ignition. I jerked the shift lever into reverse and floored it.

  Any notion that the Sheriff’s intentions were less than deadly vanished when both he and his passenger - Massoud - threw open their doors, drew their handguns, and came at us. The Mustang’s rear wheels chugged on the gravel, clattering rocks against the undercarriage and fishtailing us away from them. The two men leveled their weapons as I shifted into low on the fly. The scuddering tires reversed their spin and propelled the Mustang forward. Knowing the men were near enough to pick us off easily as we moved past them, I tried a desperate maneuver.

  “Get down!” I shouted. My passengers ducked below the level of the dashboard, and I steered for the men with the engine wrapping up and the tires sending out a spray of rock and dust behind. Both men managed only one shot. Massoud’s went wide. The Sheriff’s punched a hole in the center of my windshield, but by then the Mustang’s front bumper was nearly at his knees. He leaped to one side to escape being hit and Massoud leaped the other way. The Mustang fishtailed between them as they fell, spraying them with gravel and dust. I steered around the patrol car and then glanced in my rear-view mirror as we hurtled along the driveway. I could see the two men rise in the pall of dust and pull off several shots apiece, but these missed their marks as we gained distance from them.

  As we approached the highway, McKean sat up.

  “Which way should I turn?” I asked him.

  “Help is closest in Winthrop. Take a right.”

  Just then, a huge black pickup truck barreled out of the gate of Arabians Unlimited and skidded to a stop, straddling the highway on our right and blocking any chance of getting to Winthrop. The driver rolled his window down and drew a handgun. Simultaneously, a second man stood up behind the cab with a shotgun.