TEN
Nell looked out the cabin window at the pine trees she’d seen last night. A pink sliver of dawn slid between the branches and warmed her face. She heard birds singing.
She also heard her abductors talking in the nearby kitchen. The bull-necked man called the short leader “Hasham.” And Hasham called Bull-Neck “Aarif.”
They spoke what sounded like Arabic. Hasham would say something and Aarif would answer with na’am or laa, which seemed to mean yes or no.
She started to get out of bed, but her arm yanked to a stop. They’d handcuffed her to the bed rail. The handcuff rattle froze their conversation. They walked into her room and stared at her.
“The Ambien gave you a pleasant sleep,” Hasham said.
“It gave me a nightmare!”
“Still you rested, and I need your brain well rested.” He unlocked her handcuff.
She rubbed her wrist, then checked the bandage around her forearm incision where they removed her microchip implant. The bandage was clean and her arm seemed fine. But she wondered about infection.
“We’ve got coffee and Egg McMuffins in the kitchen,” Hasham said.
They walked her into the small rustic kitchen and she poured herself a coffee. She sipped some. It tasted like tar. She bit into a cold Egg McMuffin. Maybe a day old.
The big man, Aarif, stared at her. Everything about him frightened her. His small black eyes and missing left ear creeped her out. No wonder he was in her nightmare. He looked at her like she was last week’s garbage.
And she saw something else in his eyes – he, Aarif, would be the one who made sure she did not leave this cabin alive when her work was done. Some eyes can’t hide evil intentions.
Hasham sipped coffee and read DABIO, an ISIS propaganda magazine she’d seen before. The cover showed machete-wielding jihadists praising Allah by beheading two kneeling orange-suited prisoners. She wondered how people’s thinking got so warped and perverted? And whether she would soon join the beheaded?
“Time to work!” Hasham said.
He and Aarif walked her to the eight-foot floor section and they descended to the underground laboratory.
In the lab Hasham ushered her to the Hazmat suit-dressing chamber and pointed for her to put on a biohazard suit. She was relieved to see the suit was a new, fully encapsulated Tychem TK Deluxe. The Tychem would give her excellent, Level-A protection against biological and chemical agents up to Biohazard Level 4.
“Suit up. It’s your size.”
She started checking the suit for tiny holes or slits.
“The suit is safe. I checked it,” he said.
“I always check my suits.”
“You think I brought you here to poison you?”
“No, but my colleague missed a suit hole and died from Marburg days later.”
Hasham shrugged. “Go ahead. Check it.”
She did and found no holes or slits. She put it on. Hasham wore an identical suit.
He unlocked the airtight pressure door with a loud whoosh. He then led her into the bio-lab and over to rows of large round stainless steel canisters stored on racks. He turned a canister around and pointed to its label.
She read it and her blood stopped. Her worst fears were now confirmed.
“I see you recognize this product,” Hasham said.
She nodded and feared the coming disaster.
“You’ve worked with it and its antidotes on several occasions.”
He knew she had, so she nodded.
As Hasham showed her several more rows of the same gleaming canisters, she realized she had to get him talking so he’d reveal more details about his attack.
“You have so much. Where’d you get - ?”
“Allah provides for the righteous.”
“With help from Iran?”
“Maybe. Or maybe from North Korea. Or Russia. Remember when Russia closed up its biological and chemical weapons factories and stopped paying the workers? Imagine Russians workers without vodka money! A crime against humanity! So we did the brotherly love thing. We kept their vodka flowing.”
She said nothing.
“These weapons are also available right here in America, Doctor! Money buys information.”
“Like what I do at Aberdeen?”
“Like that.”
She couldn’t think of a single colleague who would betray her. But an angry or fired employee might sell information. Or be coerced to, or be so pathologically deranged he would gladly slaughter a few thousand Americans for money or revenge.
Somehow, she had to stall Hasham, find a way to sabotage the weapon. Which meant she had to discover what his delivery system was. Which meant she had to work with him. Play along. Keep him talking.
“But how’d you get so many containers into the country?”
Hasham laughed. “Open your eyes, Doctor. America’s borders are Swiss cheese. Lots of holes . . . like your 5,500 mile US-Canadian border. Some rural border crossings only have sensors.”
“But those sensors work!”
“Not if we disable them. And your Mexican border is a joke. Forty tons of marijuana moved through just one tunnel last week! There are even underground railways.”
She knew about the tunnels and railways.
“And an even bigger joke is sea containers! Fifteen million shipping containers arrive here by sea each year? Guess how many are thoroughly inspected?”
She waited.
“Three percent! That means fourteen million shipping containers are not inspected closely!”
“Why not?”
He smiled. “Could it be because many major US shipping ports are owned, controlled, and operated by Saudi and United Arab Emirates companies? Did you know that?”
She didn’t and wondered if the containers she was looking at came thorough an Arab-controlled American port?
He led her over to another chamber and pointed to a rack stacked with smaller black steel canisters.
“You also know the product in these containers.”
“They have no labels. What is it?”
“Let’s call it medicine for Americans. You’re going to help us combine the two.”
“But why? You don’t even need this mystery product to kill people. As you know, your weapon will cause excruciating pain and death in a few minutes.”
“Quite true.”
“So why the second mystery product? Dead is dead.”
“All in good time, Doctor. All in good time.”
Why was he not revealing the mystery product? Because it would suggest the weapon delivery system? Somehow she had to identify the mystery product. Knowing that might help her find a way to sabotage his attack.
“Oh by the way,” Hasham said, “your precious little daughter, Mia, is just fine. My men are taking her into protective custody as we speak. I’ll show you photos soon.”
Nell stopped breathing.