Kill Them Wherever You Find Them (3 page)

"Toda rabba Moshe, v'Shabbat shalom alecha
yedeed shellee. I'll see you next week. I look forward to getting
to work." Dr. Levin was surprised and pleased with Jeff's brief
Hebrew response, spoken with a near perfect Ashkenazi accent.
Though he knew Dr. Stauffenberg had been studying Hebrew, he didn't
realize how much he'd learned in such a short period of time.

After everybody departed for their various
destinations Moshe went back to work. Though the Sabbath was to
begin after the first three stars could be seen in the evening sky,
he still had much to do in far too little time. The stars would
just have to wait.

Moshe conference-called the General and the
Prime Minister to update them on the progress made over the last
several days.

His next call went to his wife, Rivka,
letting her know he'd be home late yet again. So many long hours as
he established his career; she patient with missed meals, broken
dates, forgotten birthdays and anniversaries. A good and
understanding woman, Moshe knew he was one of the luckiest men in
the world. He recalled that one of Stauffenberg's beliefs included
that if couples marry in a Mormon Temple and then keep their
covenants to God the rest of their lives, such marriages have the
potential to last beyond the grave.

As with most, but not all, of the Jewish
people Moshe did not believe in any kind of life-after-death. Lack
of such a belief notwithstanding, he found that he just couldn't
keep himself from hoping that this belief of the Mormon people
could be true. It was, after all, one of the most beautiful things
he had ever heard. Then again his brother, married to a really
nasty shrew of a woman, would vehemently disagree.

After a few hours Moshe finally completed his
work for the day and relaxed in the car as he was driven home to
his one love in life, even if it could be for no more a duration
than this life. Both of their heads of hair now gray for almost as
many years as they had been dark, and each of them a little shorter
than when they first stood under the chuppah to marry.

Without the woman he loved since his
adolescence and to whom he had been married for just over fifty
years, he knew he would lose his will to carry on. He secretly
hoped his final sleep would come before Rivka's. He felt guilty,
even somewhat cowardly, about that.

Table of Contents

2. Birth of Death

". . . touch not the evil gift, nor the
unclean thing."
- Book of Mormon, Moroni 10:15

Near Moscow, Russian Federation –
Eleven Years Ago

The manager of the
secret biological weapons
laboratory that had recently been decommissioned was tasked with
securing the shipment of the last of the pathogens to a much newer
lab that had retained its funding in the still struggling Russia of
the post-Soviet Union era.

Sasha realized that his job, his very
livelihood for which he had studied and worked for so long was
coming to a rapid end, once these remaining canisters were
transported by way of armored military convoy.

To complicate an already stressful situation
further, his wife was close to giving birth to their third child in
a country economically and politically collapsing under its own
mismanaged weight.

In his mid-thirties, with unemployment at
record highs in Moscow, he knew it would likely be years before he
could find comparable employment again. There would be no
government subsidies, no bank loans to help his family get through
the tough times that loomed ahead.

Making matters even more bleak were the long
lines snaking out the doors and down the sidewalks of free soup
kitchens which grew noticeably with each passing month. Among those
awaiting their turn for sustenance were a handful of the
intellectual elite of Russian science, education, literature, and
industry.

Those few highly-educated people in the
lines
,
previously well-employed and
handsomely paid who were able to find any jobs at all
,
were nonetheless unable to gain work in their areas
of expertise, finding themselves grossly under-employed. They were
the lucky ones, however; with at least a little money coming in on
a regular basis. The majority simply could find no work at all,
being over-qualified for the rare jobs that sometimes became
available, while employment they once had was either redacted by
the government or outsourced to other countries.

Gorbachev's brave, necessary really, attempt
to reorganize the Soviet economy decades prior ended, ultimately,
in a near-total implosion - bringing down what little remained of
an already eroded Soviet Union.

Mother Russia thrashed about convulsively, as
she had several times in her long history. The ghosts of so many
tsars and dictators haunting her past, the KGB alive and well under
the new title of the FSB, he wondered what the next incarnation of
his country would bring. Whatever it was, corruption would no doubt
continue to thrive as a way of life for many of his countrymen even
as his country again started to gobble up bits of the old Soviet
empire, starting with a large chunk of the Ukraine.

Sasha was one of the truly honest bureaucrats
who only wanted to do right by his employer and family. Honest and
morally centered, he had never cheated or taken a bribe, though
such opportunities abounded at the government run lab. His wife
hinted that they might be better off if he would just
play
along
and relax his sense of morality a little bit. He knew
that had he lined his pockets with bribes and kickbacks, as so many
others had done, he would not have placed his family in such a
difficult financial predicament.

The imminent loss of his job caused financial
stress in his home and emotional fractures in his marriage. Things
had been increasingly worse since the announcement of the
decommissioning of the lab earlier in the year. Now everything
seemed to be coming to a head. Months of looking for a new job
yielded a few false hopes but, ultimately, no results.

The previous week he was visited by two men
whose conversation in his office revealed that they knew far too
much about the secret lab than they should have. Somebody talked,
probably a disgruntled past employee; this came as no surprise.
They also knew the schedule and precise route of the military
convoy due to remove the remaining hazardous materials. Maybe the
source of information was someone in the military being
paid-off.

Continuing their one-sided conversation they
offered Sasha a considerable sum of money for samples of two of the
deadliest bio agents before their scheduled transfer. The men
exuded something malicious, not unlike the subtle yet undeniable
presence of emergent evil lurking, waiting, calmly observing its
prey.

Tattoos unique to those who had served years
of hard prison time littered the neck and arms of one of the men.
Bald and thick-muscled with a pronounced eyebrow ridge, he was the
diametric opposite of the smaller, bespectacled, soft-spoken man
making the offer. The mountain of tattooed muscle, the
Enforcer
as Sasha thought of him, never spoke so much as a
single word.

The temptation to agree to their lucrative
deal nearly overwhelmed him. He realized that they could see an
intense inner struggle, given the enticing amount of money in
American dollars.

Considering the financial straits under which
his family already struggled
,
he wanted to
take the money but knew that the two deadly biologicals, in the
hands of the men before him, would be intended to kill on a large
scale rather than used for scientific research. How much money is a
single innocent life worth? What about thousands or tens of
thousands of innocent lives?

Sasha declined as politely as he could,
hoping they didn't take note of the fear in his voice or hear his
heart thudding against the ribs of his chest. Then he asked them to
leave with as much feigned courage as he could muster.

They complied without contesting his
response, exiting with the smug smiles of those who had carefully
planted seeds they knew would surely bear fruit. As they left the
large brute of a human casually dropped a calling card on his
desk.

They seemed so sure of themselves, so
absolutely certain that he would have a change of heart. Sasha
hated their smugness – especially that of the smaller man – as if
they knew him, as if he were in some special way a kindred spirit
whose thoughts they were able to divine and manipulate to their own
ends.

He realized they would almost certainly
return. When they did, their next visit would, without the
slightest shadow of a doubt, be accompanied with physical pain to
replace the generous financial incentive. He also knew that he was
the only person capable of filling their request, now that the last
of the scientists and lab assistants had been let go.

Just seven were currently employed, Sasha
along with three guards for the day and three for the night shifts.
The guards didn't have access to the heavily secured materials that
he had. His two visitors would either have to get the pathogens
they wanted from him or risk attempting a dangerous heist with the
armored military trucks as they were en route. The destination lab
was far too secure and heavily guarded to chance a break-in. The
security corridor that would be in place to protect the armored
transport along the designated travel route would also be all but
impenetrable.

It would be a good idea to report the
incident and request additional security until the final materials,
the stuff of which nightmares were made, were safely removed and
this labs' doors locked for the final time.

The following Tuesday shaped up to be a
hectic day at work, topped off with a mountain of bureaucratic
paperwork that still had to be completed. Plunging into the pile of
job justification Sasha was so focused that it took a few rings of
the phone before the call penetrated his thoughts. Glancing at the
Caller ID he was pleased to see his wife, Ekaterina, on the other
end.

Ekaterina, or Katia as he fondly called her,
audibly choked back tears between labored breaths of air. Instant
concern kicked in knowing the fragile nature of her pregnancy.

Before she could get three words out Sasha
told her he would come home immediately. He had rushed his wife to
the hospital midway through the second trimester when she began to
heavily spot blood. Following a three day stay she was discharged
with strict instructions that she had to maintain complete and
total bed rest for the duration of her pregnancy, or the placenta
might completely separate from the uterine wall. Already a busy day
before her call, he thought to himself that when it rains it
sometimes seems to come down in torrents.

"No, Sasha, I am fine. Stay there. Our bank
called. Your paycheck could not be deposited. They tried to put it
through again, even contacting issuing institution to see if there
might be some kind of error on their end. Our bank was informed
that account on which your paycheck had been drawn has been emptied
and closed. Sasha, what are we going to do? I am due in less than
two months and we have no money in reserve. You will receive no pay
for this work period as well. If you do receive check it obviously
won't be worth paper it's written on. I'm worried."

"Don't be concerned Katia, I have plan in the
works. We are going to have plenty of money with some to spare for
rainy day. Just try to get some rest now, I will be home
shortly."

"Plan? What
plan
?" The worry already
firmly established in her voice joined with a growing fear that
Sasha, with his back pushed against the proverbial wall, would do
something desperate and make an already strained situation
worse.

"Don't you worry about it for another minute.
Go back to bed and rest, let me handle this."

"But Sasha . . ."

"Not another word! It really is all under
control. We are going to be fine. Now off to bed with you!"

"Okay, but hurry home as soon as you can.
Please Sasha, don't do anything crazy. We will figure out
something. I'm sure we could ask my parents for little help if we
need to."

Sasha wasn't one to crumble into a state of
panic at the first sign of trouble, a good trait for the manager of
a biohazard materials lab. A thinker, a planner, the ultimate
organizer, he realized that he already had no employment,
absolutely no income, and a family for which to provide food,
shelter, and warmth.

While deeply inhaling the warm and calming
smoke of a cigarette, he shuddered under the chill of a frigid and
dreary day. The coming Muscovite winter already hung in the late
afternoon autumn air. The thought of asking his father-in-law for
money sent a second shudder down his spine.

Sasha reached the only decision he felt that
he could, concluding that the next morning he would call the number
on the business card. Never having thrown away the card or
reporting the incident as he ought to have, he begrudgingly
admitted to himself that he had, in reality, reached this decision
before they departed.

"Dobre ootra, this is Sasha Chesnokov. With
whom am I speaking?"

"Dobre. Let's leave our names out of it, for
everybody's sake. It's good to hear from you Sasha. You have
changed your mind then, da?"

"Da, I have. Come to my office with money, in
American dollars cash you offered. I will have your
samples
ready."

"We can be there within hour. This works for
you?"

"Nyet. I will need more time. Give me two
hours. Make that three. There is just one guard stationed at door
to cryogenic storage room. I will have to wait until he goes on his
lunch break. I routinely take over his station hour or so that he
is away. Nothing will look suspect. I have canisters ready to fill
moment he leaves. It will take me nearly hour to follow containment
safety procedures. Before doing that, though, I have to first
disable cameras and alarm system then re-enable them once I have
completed transfer of samples. This is delicate, nothing can be
rushed."