Surrept (18 page)

She exits the lobby dragging a mailbag the young guard gave her and heads for her car, scanning the parking area for FBI surveillance. She looks at the security cameras as she nears her car. She knows the guard is watching her on his monitors; she stops and bends over with her back to the camera. She hits the button for the trunk on her keys and quickly places the mail inside, then leaves the parking lot trying to maneuver so that he does not see her license plate.

Her heart pounds as she enters the freeway. Adriana is baffled. How in the hell did the FBI move so fast? Do they know about her? Are they watching her now, as she drives? She looks in her mirror, begins the task of checking for a tail, and exits the freeway. She drives for forty minutes. She is finally satisfied that no one is tracking her.

She heads for a hotel and decides she will regroup and get her cash secured. She needs to tie up all loose ends fast, before she leaves. She is burned in Denver, and it is time for her to leave the country.

Adriana checks into a top Denver hotel and uses a false identification and credit card to register. She makes her way to the room and decides she must sell her car and the family ranch very fast, if she can.

She enters the room and the stress pours over her. She goes over each of her steps, trying to recall where she may have failed, and then remembers what the young guard had said: that the FBI had seized some computers. She then realizes where she made the mistake. A painful thought hits her—could the mail she picked up contain some kind of tracking device?

She carefully opens the boxes and goes through them inch by inch, examining the wrapping she had applied before she sent it. It all looks the same, just as she recalls. She begins to go through the cash carefully again to be sure.

Adriana lies on the bed realizing that paranoia has overwhelmed her and she needs to release some tension so she can think properly. She finds the yellow phone book in the drawer next to the bed and turns to
"Male Escorts."

A man answers, "Good afternoon. Denver's Ladies Line. How may I assist you this afternoon?"

Adriana is lying on the bed counting out some money with the phone to her ear. "I would like to engage the services of two of your top gentleman this evening."

"I will be glad to assist you in your arrangements for this evening; may I ask your age preference and time of arrival requirements please?"

She looks at her watch. "Let's say six-thirty would be perfect, and twenty-nine to thirty-six, and they must be incredibly well built in all ways, and willing to share my attention accordingly. I require a lot of attention this evening."

"May I ask of the attire you require for the gentlemen for this engagement?"

She is not going anywhere for the night. "Casual is fine, we will be dining in the suite."

"May I ask how long you will require their attention, please?"

Adriana smiles. "I would require them for breakfast as well. I just hate to eat alone."

***

That afternoon, Ahmed works in the basement finishing up his final calculations and double-checking his formula for creating a super foodborne bacteria. He moves to a small microscope, views a slide of bacteria alive with movement, and it is mutating rapidly.

He removes some of the newly created bacteria and places it in six separate Petri dishes under a desk lamp. He adds bits of ground chicken that has been decaying in Tupperware on the roof with some other meats. He opens the other containers. He is repulsed by the odor that fills his basement room. He gags as reaches for a tee-shirt on the floor to cover his nose and mouth.

He mixes the meats in a container. One is marked pork, one poultry and one beef. He adds the various protein bacterias to the Petri dish and then adds a little warm water to his concoction. He seals the lid and shakes the container.

Ahmed reaches for two cans of albacore tuna that he had smashed and placed in a Ziploc bag, exposed to the sun for two days at variable ambient temperatures. He opens the bag. He is overwhelmed by the odor again; he rushes to the bathroom and vomits.

He covers his tee-shirt with rubbing alcohol, and ties it around his face and heads back into the room to finish. He adds the botulism-filled fish from the damaged cans to his Petri dishes, dumps the balance in with his meats, and closes the Tupperware container.

His eyes begin to water from the rancid fumes and odors that have filled the room. He knows there was no time to build a controlled environment. He places the Tupperware in a trash bag, seals it, and covers the lamp and Petri dishes with a box.

He checks his watch and sets an alarm for eleven hours, the optimum time for incubation and mutation cycle. In less than half a day, by morning, Ahmed will create a super bacteria that well self mutate and be difficult to detect once introduced into the food chain.

Early the next morning, Ahmed has finished prayers. He checks the street outside the market. He then checks the alley out back. There is a homeless man digging in the market trash dumpster for food.

Ahmed calls out to him. "Hey, if you're hungry, I have some fresh food for you."

The man, startled at first, smiles and climbs down. Ahmed grabs two sandwiches that Omar had made for him before he left for the weekend and some juice from the refrigerator.

He rushes back to the rear door and gives the man the food and two containers of orange juice.

The old man accepts and looks to Ahmed's face. "God bless you. Thank you, young man."

Ahmed responds to the weathered old man. "
Assalmu Alaikom
." The old man smiles and says to Ahmed, "I have peace, thank you, and I wish it for you as well."

The man makes his way to his cart and pushes it down the alley. Ahmed watches as he disappears around the corner.

Ahmed closes the door and secures it. He takes two large baking trays from a rack and heads downstairs. He places the racks on a table, pours some bleach on each, and wipes them to prevent cross contamination to Omar's trays.

He removes a small lab syringe from his bag. He then wraps his face with the tee-shirt and opens the Tupperware. His eyes detect the fumes, and he smells the vile odor again as he dips a syringe and places his viral concoction into the Petri dishes, then places covers on the dishes and places them on the trays. He wraps the trays in plastic film and secures the edges.

He checks to make sure that the Petri dish bottoms have even and equal coverage with his fatal bacterial menace.

He takes the remains and dumps them in the toilet. Ahmed flushes twice, as he pours an ample amount of bleach behind it. He flushes again. He returns to the tables and wipes everything down with bleach. He places the dishes on the trays, then into an old refrigerator in his room. It is now finally done. He will deliver his super bacteria, and then finally his task will be completed.

Ahmed checks the room and makes sure everything is clean. He goes upstairs to make some breakfast, while he wonders how the old American knew the meaning of the comment he made in the alley.

The opulence of the Abu Dhabi skyline glimmers like jewels in the desert as the man approaches with his English escort in a limousine. The desert has always seemed so peaceful to him since he was a boy. He was nervous about this unexpected trip and knew that it meant trouble. He also knows that he held all of the cards, except for what they owe him. The limo pulls up to a glass tower and is greeted by several well dressed sentries in western business suits who form a line of protection to the main doors under a well lit porte-cochère.

The Englishman exits first and the man follows, checking the eyes of the sentries as he passes each one, knowing that he may have to face one or more of them if this meeting goes awry. They enter the building and security is greater than he has ever seen as they go into the private elevator that whisks them to the penthouse where the white robes wait.

They exit the elevator and are searched by yet more security and are escorted through two large gold doors where the lights from the jewels of the desert are visible through the wall of glass that wraps the room in marble, white and gold.

Three men stare, all seated in their robes in a sitting area dressed with leather decor and African hides. They rise as the two men enter, and the man kisses each of them on each cheek and the hand of one, who motions for him to take a seat. A servant appears ready with beverages and serves them as the man waits for the eldest to speak.

The eldest robed man speaks. "Darren, thank you for escorting our guest here. You may wait downstairs."

The Englishman sets down his beverage and excuses himself as he leaves.

The doors of gold close and the elder Arab speaks in a firm tone. "You have brought great madness to the world, and our market interests have spiraled much greater than we anticipated."

The man listens closely.

"The pressure from the west is causing great fear and concern among all of our allies and partners across the world. We are considering an end to all of this. We fear we have made a mistake in placing our trust in your plan to strengthen Islam and the Arab nations."

The man sets his drink down to respond properly. "You and our Arab brothers control vast wealth and commodities. Yet you all wish not to tarnish or soil your robes of white. Therefore, you come to men like me to alter the environments in which you all cast your lots to ensure favor in their bidding. Yet you want to leash, or chastise men like me, who are your secret dogs of war." The man stares at them grimly as he continues. "You clandestinely wish not to offend your neighbors, who do not share your conspiracies. Now that we have shown the intruders of Islam the nature of our bite, for there are no fences with which to keep us out. You then scoff at the methods in which we tear our prey, to chase them from our lands by biting them in their fields. Yet, I draw a fraction of the blood. Not unlike our brothers' blood, which they have spilled on our sands in our very own regions where we have lived and raised our families for decades."

He draws from his own anger. "I say now to your faces. I will not relent, because you send an errand messenger who fetches the dog that you unleashed, and I shall affirm my position to you, as we agreed."

The man continues as he rises. "Just as you cannot stop a rock which falls from the mountain, nor the blood that is drawn from a bite to the hearts of those enemies of your kingdom. You cannot stop this either, it is dentinal. This, including all of the lands of Islam, those lands that hold the very commodities that you so wish to control. As each of you fill your bags of gold which you hide in foreign lands." He slowly turns looking at each one of them.

He went on. "My bags shall too be filled, as you promised, by the next banking day. As I have abided by my word, which always is kept." He moves to the wall of glass and raises his hands as he looks out with his back to them. "The markets shall turn in your favor, and shall yield great fortunes for the Arab states. Islamic consideration shall rise from the respect and fear of our actions. The west will flee from the soils they have tarnished with Muslim blood, which they have exploited for so long."

He turns and looks at them. "Correct me if I am wrong, but was this not your goal? Is not Mecca the center of the entire world? Is it not the duty of the kingdom and its leaders of influence to protect it?" He finishes by sitting down and finishes his beverage in silence.

An hour later the man boards a private jet as the Englishman sees him off, with two new women waiting to serve his needs inside. The plane departs for Vancouver, British Columbia as the sun rises early Sunday morning.

***

It is ten hours earlier in Denver Saturday night. Reggie is sitting in a restaurant bar and has been waiting for some time, nursing a cocktail at a booth. He hears high heels behind him. Adriana Pucci sits down across from him and pushes her thick dark curly hair over her shoulder.

Reggie pulls the toothpick from his mouth. "I've been waiting almost two hours."

Adriana waves to the server as she responds. "Did you get your mail?"

He looks at her, admiring her stunning face. "Yes, now would you please answer my question?"

Adriana says, "I have had a few obstacles to overcome lately."

"I am not tripping on that. Do you read the papers, or watch the news?"

She looks at him again and decides to placate him. "Of course, isn't it all so horrible?"

The server comes and Adriana orders a glass of Chardonnay.

Reggie continues, "I am not talking about the terrorist thing. I'm talking about me being busted with the last load. And your clueless ass is just mailing her little butt off like you work for Hallmark or something, right in the middle of it all."

He sees that Adriana is surprised at his disclosure.

"And now I got the feds picking up my case from the local authorities. Where have you been, on the moon or some shit?" Reggie maintains eye contact as he speaks to Adriana. "It has been in the papers, the news, and even cable. Man, I got homies that know me all my life that cross the street when they see my compromised black ass coming. I'm hotter than Alabama asphalt in August. Adriana, they could be on me, right now."

Adriana feels sick as she scans the restaurant. The server arrives with her wine, and she drinks it down quickly as she shoulders her purse. "I have to go, Reggie. This is not good news."