by Carr, Jack
“Electron microscope. Centrifuge culture cabinet. Heat vents. UV exhaust vents.”
“What for?” Haley asked.
“For the kidney cells.”
“Help us help you, Shahram,” she said. “What kidney cells?”
“Green monkey. From Africa.”
“Shahram, this is important: Did you separate them into independent cell lines? And did you introduce a sample?”
They had clearly surpassed Reece’s infectious disease knowledge. He was now a spectator as Haley dove into the specifics.
Shahram coughed, more blood trickling from his mouth and nose. Reece noticed blood beginning to drip from his ears as Haley pressed on.
“Shahram, we need to know,” she said, her voice calm and compassionate.
“Think of your parents, Shahram,” Reece injected.
Haley turned and gave him a stare that told him to back off.
Shahram closed his eyes again.
“ašhadu ‘an lā ‘ilāha ‘illa-llāhu, wa-‘ašhadu ‘anna muḥammadan rasūlu-llāhi.”
I bear witness that there is no deity but God, and I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of God.
Reece was getting impatient. The constraints of the suit and the claustrophobia of the mask were pushing him closer to the edge. The man before him was responsible for a virus that threatened to ignite a new civil war and, more important to Reece, he was somehow connected to the assassins who had targeted him and Katie in Maryland.
Stuck upside down in the overturned Land Cruiser, drawing his pistol, eye picking up the red dot, knees exploding from the impact of the bullets, head shot.
“Fucking talk, Shahram! Fucking talk or I swear to God, I will fillet your mom in front of your father, before dismembering them both and burning their worthless bodies. Their souls will never find peace. They will haunt you in the afterlife.”
“I…”
“Fucking talk!”
Haley stared at Reece in disgust, then turned back to the patient.
“Just take a breath, Shahram. Think and tell me the nature of the sample that was introduced.”
Shahram’s bloody eyes drifted from Haley to Reece. His vision blurred from fever and a virus that was liquefying his brain, but through the haze he studied Reece, seeing not a man but Azrael, the angel of death.
“Mar…” His voice trailed off, more blood dripping from his nose.
“What?” Haley asked, trying to encourage him.
“Marburg.”
Haley felt the blood draining from her face.
“What type of Marburg?”
“Variant U.”
Dear God in heaven.
“Where did you get it?”
Gasping for breath, his body shuddered and he retched a greenish yellow vomit mixed with tinges of dark blood onto his pillow and chest.
“Where did you get it?” Reece shouted, reinserting himself into the interrogation. “Was it this man?”
Reece shoved a blurry photo in front of Shahram, a photo he’d taken in Chicago of a figure leaving the house of his first target.
Before Shahram could avert his eyes, Reece saw the recognition.
“And the lab, Shahram. Is it in the house you bought in Denver?”
Shahram remained silent.
“Shahram,” Haley said, needing more information. “How does it spread? Did you aerosolize it?”
He gave a slight nod.
“Can it be passed from human to human?”
He paused.
“Your parents, Shahram!” Reece barked.
“I don’t know where it came from. How is it spread? Direct bodily fluid contact, contaminated blood. Is it a respiratory disease? I can’t be certain. It was released in aerosolized form. I don’t know why.”
“To cause this?” Reece said, gesturing to the cots awaiting bodies against the green canvas walls of the tent.
“I don’t know.”
“Who knows? This man?” Reece asked, pointing to the surveillance photo he’d taken in the Windy City.
“I don’t know, please.” His voice was getting weaker.
“You are a shitty liar, Shahram. Tell me about him. Who is he?”
“Praise be to Allah, I do not know.”
“He lied to you, Shahram. Did he tell you that you were part of the team? That you were a warrior of Allah? Is this how a warrior of Allah dies? He killed you, Shahram. He killed you to tie up loose ends. You were always a liability, an expendable asset. This is a man you want to protect?”
“No,” Shahram murmured without conviction.
“Where can I find him? How did you contact him?”
“I didn’t. He came through the mosque. Please…”
“What mosque?”
“Please…”
“The FBI is raiding your house now. We are going to find everything, Shahram.”
“This is all I know. al-Ḥamdu lillāh.”
Praise be to God.
His breath was coming in shorter gasps, eyes rolling back into their blood-filled sockets, red drops of what should have been tears trickling down his face.
“‘innā li-llāhi wa-‘inna ‘ilayhi,” he whispered.
Verily we belong to Allah, and verily to Him do we return.
Reece bowed his head and whispered the Istirja before flipping the morphine and vital sign monitor back on and signaling to Haley that it was time to go.
They pushed their way through the clear plastic curtains and walked toward the exit, leaving Shahram Pahlavi to die a martyr, wondering if Azrael, the angel of death, would keep his promise.
CHAPTER 48
West Colfax, Denver, Colorado
THE KEY WAS TO make it look just enough like an accident to raise questions.
He’d used fire once before, on a houseboat in Amsterdam. That had been easier. He had started it in the engine compartment of a small boat moored alongside. This was different. If, if, authorities suspected that the virus was not naturally occurring with an index case in Angola, then a suspicious fire in a house on the outskirts of Aurora belonging to one of the first casualties might prompt some enterprising American detective or intelligence operative to start asking questions. That, or at least it would add fuel to online conspiracy theorists who would muddy the waters enough to cause even the staunchest government supporters to question the official narrative. It would be Angola or homegrown terrorism. Even though the perpetrator was of Middle Eastern descent, he was a U.S. citizen. No nukes would rocket toward Tehran, no U.S. boots would set foot on Persian soil. An America in ruins. A reshuffling of the world order.
Ali had already found antigovernment conspiracy websites theorizing that the virus was concocted in a U.S. lab, as many believed had been the case with COVID-19 in Wuhan, China. Twitter was ablaze with conjecture from shock jocks and conspiracy theorists speculating that the virus was intentionally released as justification for a federal power grab; gun confiscation was surely next, followed inevitably by reeducation facilities and, for the real troublemakers, concentration and death camps. The Bill of Rights was bound for the dustbin of history.
Ali loved the power of a free press. Its power was amplified when everyone had a voice. Theories without a foundation in facts or basis in reality could take flight and go viral. No barriers to entry. No editors. No fact checking, or if there was, it couldn’t be trusted; “fact checkers” had biases and agendas, too, after all. The loudest voices dominated the chaos that was social media hysteria, and all of it contributed to the chaos. Suppression and censorship only fueled the flames.
If the Angola angle began to look dubious, Ali was setting the conditions for another, equally compelling narrative; a U.S. citizen had conducted the plan, using university assets to build a virology lab and unleash a devil upon the populace. Whichever way one leaned, the end result remained the same. The United States would continue to turn against itself, and by the time they found out the virus was not actually a respiratory-spread contagion, it would be too late. Two American cit
ies would be destroyed, and the country would never recover. Pity that Chicago would be spared, but that could not be helped now. Even the Atlanta numbers didn’t support the destruction of that city, but the few cases that had surfaced reinforced the perception that this new “Ebola strain” spread through the air. Iran would have her revenge, and no one would be the wiser. Ali would avenge the deaths of his father and two brothers, killed by an American war machine that profited from Defā’e Moghaddas, the Holy Defense, the Iran-Iraq War. Yes, Islam would be blamed if they connected Sebastian to the plot, but everyone who unleashed the virus would be gone. Investigators would hit a dead end. Two American cities would be smoldering embers without Iran ever firing a shot.
The very pinnacle of warfare.
He’d tasked Sebastian with destroying the lab. Better to keep his own involvement to a minimum. Ali had stayed behind to ensure it was done. He had not expected the virus to take hold of the young PhD student so quickly. No matter. Adapting to a changing environment was paramount. It was also why the warriors of Allah had an advantage over the entrenched bureaucracy of their enemy.
The house was so old, even the floorboards had rotted through in places. It was a prime candidate for an inferno. With so many assets allocated to investigating the fires and destruction connected to the riots and looting in downtown Denver, this incident could easily be explained away as having been started by someone building firebombs to target police. Molotov cocktails and fireworks had become popular with American insurgents in the summer of 2020. Ali even had an Antifa flag to leave behind for an arson investigator to discover in the rubble. The point was to muddy the waters with further conjecture and confusion.
He just needed to dismantle the computer in case Sebastian had been careless and left electronic evidence that could possibly implicate Ali or Iran. A fire would not destroy everything. That was part of the plan. There needed to be just enough evidence left behind to feed the conspiracies dominating social channels. He’d suit up, take what he needed from the basement, set the fire, and be out of the state before anyone connected the fire to the outbreak, if they ever did. The world gave the Americans too much credit. They had grown stupid and weak. A generation of fast food and instant gratification had left them soulless.
He thought of all he had accomplished. He remembered the wailing of the women, the rotting meat permeating his olfactory nerves, his brother hanging by his neck, legs stained with piss and shit. He briefly thought of traveling south to kill the former secretary of defense in New Mexico, the man who had prolonged and armed both sides in the Holy Defense, the Iran-Iraq War; the man responsible for the death of his father and two brothers. He pushed that notion aside. Rumsfeld would be dead soon. He was an old man now. Ali wanted him to see his country burning before he descended into the fires of Hell.
Ali stifled a cough. Was he coming down with something? There is no way he could have contracted the virus, was there? He’d taken precautions, unlike that idiot Ustinov. All he needed to do was dismantle the computer, start a fire, and drive east for his flight back to Europe to watch America destroy itself on Al Jazeera.
Ali grabbed a screwdriver from a drawer in the kitchen and was halfway down the stairs when he heard the knock on the door.
CHAPTER 49
Interstate 70
Denver, Colorado
“WHAT DID YOU FIND out, Reece?” Vic asked over the encrypted connection.
The Suburban sped down the deserted highway toward Denver. Ken was behind the wheel and Haley was in the backseat, quiet and still fuming at Reece’s behavior with Shahram.
“This virus is not, I say again not, from Angola. Shahram built a virology lab in that house he bought in Denver. The man I photographed leaving my first target house in Chicago was his contact.”
“Do you have a name?”
“No, but we are going to the Denver house now. Is SWAT or HRT on scene?”
“Reece, this is an unprecedented situation. SWAT and HRT have their hands full. The country is descending into chaos. Politicians are at each other’s throats. Coordinating with local authorities and even federal offices is bottlenecked. Request for SWAT was approved but they are not yet on-site. There should be a black-and-white on scene now, but I have not received confirmation.”
“Shit! Understood.”
“Did he verify the type of virus. Is it airborne?”
“It’s something called Marburg Variant U. Haley says it was originally from Africa and weaponized by the Soviet Union in the seventies. They were working on an aerosol delivery system.”
The Suburban’s brakes locked up and Reece was thrown forward in his restraint.
“What the fuck? What are you doing?” the commando shouted at their driver.
“Protesters, sir. They’ve shut down the highway.”
“Damn it! Keep going. Just keep it slow and try not to kill anyone.”
“I’m not trained for this, sir.”
“Keep the doors locked, and slowly edge through them.”
“What’s going on, Reece?” Vic asked.
“Crowd of protesters blocking the highway.”
“Jesus Christ!”
“Vic, you have got to tell the president this is not a naturally occurring virus. We are going to upend the Denver house and find a connection to the man in Chicago. He’s the key.”
The Suburban slowly approached the protesters. Their voices became louder, antigovernment signs, chants.
“Uh, Mr. Donovan,” Ken said nervously from the driver’s seat.
“Don’t stop, just move slowly.”
“Vic,” Reece said back into the phone. “Tell the president not to order the strikes until we can confirm if this thing is airborne. If it’s not, he’s going to kill half a million people for nothing.”
“The president is under serious pressure from both sides of the aisle to stop the spread, to do the unthinkable.”
“What? I thought the final option was a closely guarded secret?”
“It was, but it leaked. It’s not out in the public yet but enough people are talking about it in Congress that it won’t be long.”
“Uh, sir?” Ken said.
The Suburban was completely surrounded. Protesters pounded on the hood and windows as the large black vehicle crept forward.
“I don’t like this, sir.”
“Neither do I. Just keep going.”
Antifa signs repurposed from the events of the past year were held aloft by men and women in black hoodies with masks. One man climbed up over the hood and onto the top of the slow-moving vehicle, slamming his fist onto the roof and screaming obscenities.
“Keep it slow,” Reece said. “Just don’t stop.”
“Surprised you don’t just plow through them,” came Haley’s voice from the passenger row.
“I don’t want to hurt these people. I understand their position. That being said, I will not let them keep us from our mission.”
Reece and Haley were still dressed in the CBRN suits they had changed back into as they reversed the sanitization and sterilization process on their way back through the mobile level-four biocontainment module. Their masks were off as soon as they were well out of the containment zone and DMZ.
“What’s happening, Reece?” Vic asked, the strain in his voice obvious.
“Still working our way through these protesters.”
“Get to that house. Find me something that confirms this is not airborne. Something concrete. If not, I fear the president will have no choice. If destroying these cities saves the country, possibly the world, he’s got no choice.”
“Just hold him off. Do not drop. Give me time.”
Even at the slow pace, Reece jolted forward in his seat when Ken slammed on the brakes again.
Reece looked ahead and saw why they’d stopped.
The crowd had parted. Four armed men blocked the path, pointing shotguns and ARs directly at the front window of the Suburban.
CHAPTER 50
R
EECE DIDN’T HESITATE.
OODA—Observe, orient, decide, act.
Weapons. Enemy. Threat.
Reece picked up his left leg and pushed it over the center console, slamming it onto the gas pedal. At the same time as all 420 horses leapt to life, he grabbed the steering wheel.
Their vehicle had become a weapon.
Steel shot from the scattergun impacted the passenger side of the windshield, which spiderwebbed across the screen. Two of the ARs barked, one missing completely, the shots going wildly high over the vehicle and protesters. The man with the second AR found his target just before the large vehicle connected with him and sent him careening to the side. The driver’s side of the windshield diverted the trajectory of the bullets but not enough.
Ken’s body absorbed a round that drove down into his stomach. A second hit his headrest. A third entered his shoulder and fragmented into the top of his heart. A fourth passed through his throat, spraying blood across the steering wheel, dashboard, and the left side of Reece’s face.
Haley screamed as the large vehicle thumped over the man with the shotgun, dragging him for a few yards down the road before the right rear tire caught his leg and spit him out.
“Get down!” Reece yelled at Haley.
He kept his foot on the gas, driving from the passenger seat, putting distance between them and the threat as bullets whizzed overhead and along the pavement beside them.
Ken’s body slumped forward in his seat belt, body draining of blood, draining of life. Reece elbowed him back in his seat and kept him pinned in place as he put more distance between them and their attackers, the Suburban speeding up past 100 mph.
Reece moved his elbow from Ken’s chest and attempted to apply pressure to the throat wound with his left palm, while keeping the car on the road, his hand slick with blood.
He took his eyes from the highway to assess Ken’s wounds. Instead of a young, freshly shaven face with an unruly mop of blond hair, he saw a young bearded SEAL in body armor and helmet behind the wheel of a Hilux truck on a dusty road on the outskirts of a village in Afghanistan, Reece holding the wheel while attempting to stem the flow of blood spurting from his Teammate’s neck, just before another AK round tore his head off.