And nothing effected change like war. DeBorn was an experienced hand in the game, having influenced Ayatollah Khomeni to rise against the Shah of Iran by using Iranian students to take over the American embassy, thereby strengthening a Muslim resolve that would be needed to challenge the Soviets. Reagan and the first President Bush had used DeBorn’s war strategy to pit Iran against Iraq. More recently, Bush II and Cheney had created their own “war on terror” as an excuse to take over Iraqi oil reserves and secure a natural-gas pipeline across Afghanistan.
Now Bertrand DeBorn and his “commission” would instigate a completely new war — this one designed to spawn their New World Order. Iran, Syria, and Lebanon would be toppled first, followed eventually by Saudi Arabia. Any nation that refused to participate would simply be subdued or eliminated, their resources confiscated, all the while boosting the profit margins of key Western companies heavily invested in warfare. The only downside to ongoing combat operations was its drain on America’s middle class, but then the middle class had no future in a New World Economy. As anticipated, higher gas prices had succeeded in further segregating the masses into the haves and have-nots, making society easier to manage. One either staked a claim at the banquet table or was relegated to servicing the needs of the upper class — that was “Law of the Jungle” economics.
Ernest Lozano climbed in the backseat of the limo, waiting to be acknowledged.
Bertrand DeBorn continued reading his New York Times, never bothering to look up. “How bad?”
“Bad. Kissin outed Battelle.”
“Battelle will rebound,” said DeBorn, turning to the op ed page. “They’ll discover the cure to the next pandemic and the stock will split. What is needed now is the pandemic. You saw this morning’s SAT images?”
“Six Russian-made Topol-M SS-27 mobile ICBMs, each missile having a seven-thousand-kilometer strike range.”
“Eleven thousand kilometers, and it was a dog and pony show, orchestrated in part by Iran’s biggest oil recipient, the Chinese. The clock is ticking, Mr. Lozano. We need a suitable biological solution.”
“Yeah, well anthrax is out. And since Battelle is out, it has to be something coming out of Fort Detrick.” Lozano searched his BlackBerry files. “West Nile virus, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, SARS, tuberculosis, typhus…”
DeBorn folded the newspaper, clearly perturbed. “No, no. These are all BSL-3 toxins. I need a BSL-4, something that strikes the masses with the fear of Marburg or Ebola but carries the weaponization component of the Ames strain.”
Lozano continued searching his files. “Lassa fever is Level-4, so is Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever. Wait a moment, here’s something new… Project Scythe. It’s a BSL-4 contaminant, with a small R & D team attached, headed by an unknown, a microbiologist named Mary Klipot.”
“Scythe… I like the sound of that. What’s the bacilli history?”
“Yersinia pestis—bubonic plague.”
DeBorn smiled. The Black Death was a true pandemic. In only a few short years, it wiped out more than half the population of Europe and Asia. “What did this Klipot woman find?”
“Looks like they found the living virus.”
“Who else has access to Scythe?”
“Besides command, just her lab assistant, another level-four geek named Andrew Bradosky.”
“Get to him.” DeBorn laid his head back.
“What’s your timetable? No disrespect, but after today, we may not be the only buyer seeking product. I need to know the extent of my resources—”
The National Security Advisor grabbed Ernest Lozano by his left wrist, his icy blue glare causing the former commando to freeze. “Things are in play, my friend. Big things. The world is going to change. So you spend what you need to spend and eliminate anyone who stands in our way. I expect to be in Tehran, pumping crude, in eighteen months. As such, I want Scythe weaponized no later than early spring. That, Mr. Lozano, is your timetable.”
The one armed man with the Jim Morrison looks and faraway eyes tossed ragged in his sleep, his mind caught in a hurricane of recycled memories…
“Where you from, Rook?”
“Brooklyn.” The twenty-three-year-old sporting the fresh crew cut and standard-issue Army tee shirt and briefs avoids the medical officer’s face, his eyes glued to the series of vaccinations the dark-haired physician is preparing.
“Greenwich Village, we’re practically neighbors. Got a name, Brooklyn?”
“Patrick Shepherd.”
“David Kantor. I’m CO of the medical party you’re assigned to. We play a lot of pickup games during downtime. You play hoops?”
“A little.”
“Yeah, you look like an athlete. Got a decent team, but most of my surgeons are ninety-day BOGers. We could use you.”
“BOGers?”
“Boots on the Ground. Surgeons rotate in every ninety days. Okay, this first shot is for anthrax. It’ll hurt a little, and by a little I mean it’ll feel like I injected a golf ball made of lava into your deltoid. Any preferences?”
“Yeah, don’t do it. Wait, Doc, not that arm, do my left shoulder, I’m a righty.”
David Kantor injects the elixir into his deltoid, the fire igniting thirty seconds later.
“Mutha F’er—”
“It’ll cool down, but you’ll feel that knot for about two weeks. This next shot is the bitch: Smallpox. Believe it or not, George Washington was the first one to inoculate his troops against the disease. Forward thinker, the general. Of course, when I say inoculate, I’m talking about sticking a fork into an infected soldier’s pox, then stabbing the person to be vaccinated a few dozen times with the pus. Plenty of Washington’s men died in the process, but the numbers were far better than the disease. The British were the first to use smallpox as a biological. Right arm or left?”
“Left.”
“You sure? I have to jab you fifteen times.”
“Just stick me… ahh!” Patrick winces, counting each injection out loud.
“They teach you some basic Arabic?”
“What’s your name? Drop your weapon. Do you need medical assistance? I’ll never remember it.”
“You’ll pick it up. Of course, they never teach you what the acceptable responses are.” Dr. Kantor finishes bandaging the area. “Okay, Brooklyn, this is important: You need to keep this area covered with a bandage for a month. Screw up, and you’ll get pox pustules that will itch like hell. Plus we may have to vaccinate you again. So don’t screw up. You all packed?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Make sure you have extra socks and tee shirts, plus batteries for your flashlights and cleaning kits for your weapons. Buy some Sharpies, too. Anything that doesn’t have a name on it walks away. Get a spool of the five-fifty paracord. It’s light and strong, makes a good clothesline for drying your laundry. And don’t forget duct tape. It fixes damn near everything, plus you’ll need it to tape down the straps on your rucksack. Telltale noises get soldiers shot. How are you handling the Kevlar body armor?”