Kill Them Wherever You Find Them (29 page)

"Yes ma'am!" Jeff returned her kiss, hugged
her, then forced himself to let go and return to the car.

"It sounds like you dodged a bullet there
buddy."

"You'll never know!" The driver, though, in
fact did know. He was one of the nine Mossad agents tasked to watch
over Mrs. Stauffenberg and her children – Jeff too when he was in
Colorado. His report to Jerusalem would arrive and be analyzed long
before Moshe and Jeff were due to touch down.

Table of Contents

21. Time to Do It Right

"If you don't have
time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?"
-
John Wooden

Los Angeles, California, United
States of America

Dr. Bruce Honegger, head
of the Center for
Disease Control, continued to amass information and coordinate his
team's findings with other local, state, and federal government
agencies. He maintained an open line with his own CDC offices in
Atlanta as well as the World Health Organization.

For nearly five days Bruce had been surviving
on a steady diet of coffee and sandwiches. One of the soldiers on
site joked with the other soldier guarding the elevators that the
good doctor should just opt for a coffee I.V. drip. Bruce, blessed
with excellent hearing, overheard the comment as he was walking
back into the conference-room-turned-laboratory with probably his
tenth cup of coffee that day. Eyes darkened with lack of sleep he
thought to himself that a coffee I.V. would actually have been
welcome.

He planned on being in L.A. for just a couple
of days, three at the most. Three stretched into five days, the
science team finally making real progress. Entering the apartment
complex was like living a nightmare that only the incredibly
creative mind of Steven King himself could have conjured.

Bloated bodies, covered with flies and
maggots were in most apartments and some hallways. The bodies of a
young couple were on the stairwell. Anthrax and Ebola had both been
identified in a double-chambered vial next to the body of a little
girl on the sixth floor. The chamber of Anthrax had been broken,
releasing it into the air. The Ebola chamber was still intact. It
was confirmed that the strains of each had been genetically
manipulated into far deadlier forms than their original states,
which were incredibly deadly in their own right. The who, why, and
how had yet to be determined – questions for which only the
how
applied to Dr. Honegger and his team.

A thermal cleaning of bodies and building had
been ordered with several blocks around evacuated as a containment
precaution. The airspace over the neighborhood was being enforced
as a no-fly zone. There would be no packing of instruments once
they had completed their medical assessments as these would also be
thermally destroyed to avoid even the slightest risk of
contaminants escaping into the population. It was a miracle that
the devastation had not gone beyond the building. Had the emergency
not been identified, with the apartment building sealed off as
quickly as it had been, the mortality rate would have multiplied
significantly.

One more day, then home. Bruce was exhausted
while at the same time exhilarated by the chance to do genuine
field work again. Considering the cost in life and treasure that
this event had exacted, he felt almost ashamed to admit to himself
how fascinating the case was.

The CDC and WHO had received samples of both
diseases for independent testing and verification. The virulence of
the Ebola strain was the worst either had seen. The only good news
was that it appeared to burn out after a second host of rats and
monkeys were used for testing. Most likely it would be the same for
humans. Anthrax, on the other hand, can survive centuries in the
soil. Once again exposed to a human it would prove as deadly and
virulent as the day it was buried.

The original source of the strains couldn't
be traced initially, though it was believed they were based on
strains being researched in Russia years ago.

The military and FBI, working with the CIA,
were able to trace the identities and backgrounds of the people in
every apartment but one. The family that once lived in apartment
6-A were in the United States on forged documents with false
backgrounds. The forgeries, though detected, were brilliantly
executed to the point where they initially fooled even an FBI
expert. It was clear that significant money and organizational
power were behind what had happened here.

Though not his area, curiosity about the
potential cause kept Bruce's ears alert to conversations among the
FBI and CIA agents. It was believed the family in 6-A might have
been Chechen, but that remained to be confirmed. There were a few
ethnic Chechen families in the building though no link from them to
any extremist movements, Muslim, anti-Russian, or otherwise, could
be found.

The double-chambered broken vial was found
next to one of the children near the stairway. Photographs of her
with her family in 6-A provided the first solid clue.

Initially there was no way to find a
connection between her family and the tragedy until their
documentation was proved a forgery. How she was able to even get
her hands on the vial remained a mystery but that it actually did
belong to one, or both, of her parents was by now certain with a
fingerprint match from the vial to her mother.

Her mother, listed as Milana Nuradilov on her
university identification badge, was documented as a student at a
local university. The university confirmed that she was not, in
fact, a student.

Milana appeared to be in her early thirties.
Her pelvic bone showed that she had given birth, these probably
were her real children and husband or boyfriend. A further search
showed that she worked at a kosher restaurant in the city, employed
there for just over two months. She was a good employee, always
cheerful and on time to work her scheduled hours. The latter being
a trait her employer, Yannik Abromovitz, valued highly.

Mr. Abromovitz was deeply upset when he
learned about Milana, and the circumstances surrounding her death.
Shown a photo of the little girl, he burst into tears. Two weeks
prior, he gave her a toy for her birthday and sent over a surprise
birthday cake when he realized that her mom worked the entire day
of the little girl's birthday.

Before hiring Milana he dutifully checked her
Green Card to confirm she could be gainfully employed while in the
country.

He had never met the husband. He confirmed
that they were, indeed, married and said Milana seemed to have a
genuinely happy home life. He had never seen her upset. She was
always well groomed and her uniform always clean and pressed. There
was no evidence of recreational drug use; as a matter of fact,
Milana didn't even drink alcohol or smoke. Milana was, according to
Mr. Abromovitz, Jewish - but not religious. He could confirm that
she spoke of family in Chechnya and spoke halting English with a
Chechen accent.

An FBI agent, notably a woman and possibly a
mother herself, questioned how a child could have access to
something so devastatingly lethal – how could her parents put it in
a place where she could reach it? Honegger realized that was one
question that may never be resolved, one he was happy to leave to
others to puzzle out. At least biomedical science could give him
precise answers to his own investigation.

Honegger wondered if there were other such
vials in Los Angeles and if he was even safe at the hotel where he
was staying. Bodyguards were assigned to each member of his team at
all times. How can a bodyguard, when he is in his hotel room
without the benefit of a bio hazard suit, protect him from two of
the smallest of enemies known in the history of humankind? Setting
this thought aside before it escalated into all-out fear, Bruce
busied himself with the work at-hand.

"Dr. Honegger, I'm sorry to interrupt you. I
thought you'd want to be informed right away."

"What is it, Dr. Simons?"

"The World Health Organization has traced the
genetic fingerprint of both the Ebola and Anthrax strains to what
the CIA and MI6 believe was a secret Level Four bio hazard
laboratory just outside of Moscow which was believed to have been
decommissioned shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union. The CDC
has confirmed this as the most likely origin."

"Thank you, Dr. Simons."

Dr. Honegger knew that the fall of the Soviet
Union resulted in a "brain drain" throughout the former union.
Research scientists lost funding for their work and employment
forcing them to look to other sources, not always legal, for
money.

Lack of money created another crisis: A black
market emerged when laboratories and bio radiology storage
facilities had to be closed for lack of funding or a dearth of
scientific and governmental oversight, usually both.

The two main hubs of research, Russia and the
Ukraine, saw deadly biological strains that had been developed as
weapons, as well as radioactive materials, flow into the hands of
other governments and terror organizations, whoever was willing to
pay the most. The Russian and Ukrainian underworlds grew fat and
rich while the general population sank into even deeper poverty and
hunger. All the while terror-sponsoring nations and groups were
able to obtain previously undreamed-of weapons that could fit into
a suitcase, or even a small vial.

The demise of the Soviet enemy of the west
gave spectacular rise, almost overnight, to what Honegger's brother
David coined the Red Crescent enemy. While the Soviet Union was a
threat, mostly to Europe and the Americas, the militant Islamic
extremists were a threat to all nations, especially those nations
with a Muslim majority population. This latter enemy rose to global
prominence in international affairs seemingly overnight.

As with other standing armies, the Red Army
could generally be easily identified, for the most part playing by
internationally accepted rules of war, both overt and covert.
Terror groups, on the other hand, typically hide among common
people without uniform or insignia; acknowledging no rule of war.
To them, innocent children on the "other side" were every bit as
guilty as the soldiers of enemy countries.

Some of the terror groups turn on one another
with loyalties shifting to whichever group is strongest and
ideologically most similar. Each group vying for moral, physical,
and financial support of larger groups, as well as governments that
sponsor terrorism, to further their own agendas. Alliances are
easily formed and then breached, with new groups forming from the
disenfranchised – or often simply the more violent elements – of
the older, established groups. The PLO terror group was spun off
Fatah, then Hamas, which was really more a creation of the Muslim
Brotherhood. Groups like these were but shadows of what was to
come. Other countries, such as the Philippines and Malaysia, had
their own examples.

In the United States, as the KKK fell out of
political favor, it spun off a number of extremist movements
including several white supremacy and neo-nazi groups. Every
country, without exception, had no shortage of dangerous lunatics.
Most of them starting as religious zealots of just about every
major faith and denomination in the so-called civilized world -
teaching extremism, spewing unbridled hatred for those not of their
religious views or ethnic identity, then letting their radicalized
followers loose on an unsuspecting public.

While racism and sexism still existed in the
United States – everywhere around the world, sadly - it was ever so
slowly giving way to an equality informed by enlightened
education.

He then thought of the Muslim faith. An
avowed Atheist himself, Bruce really admired the Muslims he
personally knew in the United States and abroad. He found it to be
a good religion filled with many exceptional and benevolent people.
He felt it profoundly unfortunate that the militant Islamic
terrorists, emboldened and strengthened by politicized Islamic
groups and governments, made it seem to people unfamiliar with
Islam, that all Muslims are evil and want to dominate the
world.

Islam is a great and valid world religion,
having given us so much – including the basis of math, geometry,
and astronomy. Additionally, so many Muslims risked their lives to
hide and feed Jews during the Nazi Holocaust. There are Muslims
today who risk life and limb to fight with the State of Israel
against those who would destroy her.

What a shame to see the damage a handful of
radicals has done to the name and reputation of the vast majority
of Muslim people around the world, who would make good neighbors.
The irony of it all is that the Holy Qu'ran is the only book of
scriptures among all religions of note that never once mentions a
single weapon of war.

"Time to return my focus to these smallest
weapons of war." Bruce murmured to himself, lack of sleep catching
up to him. He realized his stream of thoughts had been drifting,
something totally out-of-character when adequate rest allowed full
concentration. He returned to his room for a little long-overdue
sleep, accepting that if he allowed fatigue to introduce mistakes
in his and his team's vital work here, he wouldn't have a chance to
get it right.

Table of Contents

22. A Life Spent

"Time is the coin of your life. It is the only
coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be
careful lest you let other people spend it for you."
- Carl
Sandburg

Tzahal General Staff Offices,
Jerusalem, Israel

Avi was traumatized to
the very center of his
being. As soon as he was able to gather his thoughts and hold his
emotions in check, he reached the conclusion that he had to turn
himself in, face whatever fate was his.