Ghost Detectives Bk. 02: Virus 04-08

"No!" Kanval sternly replied. "One slip and all we've worked for so far will drop to dust."

She looked towards the other two who at first shook their shoulders but eventually came down positive on Eiliyah's side, arguing against Kanval that, providing all the safeguards and protocols were in place and the target specimens were isolated, there would be value in following through and would speed up the project by many weeks. She still felt unsure with Kanval being adamantly against her suggestion and text Abisali for his response, knowing a positive from him would make Kanval fall into line. Immediately, the reply came back for her to commence experimentation and afterward kill any survivors and burn all bodies. Within days, four soundproofed, air-sealed isolation cubicles were in place, two metre by two metre transparent boxes with a small air sealed vacuum vent for food distribution with drainage to the inside, water sprinklers and air vents in the ceiling with a small toilet in the corner, a waterproof mattress resting against the glass on one side. Cameras secured in place, and they were ready. That evening, they picked up four people, three men and a woman. Naked and under sedation inside the sealed units they were ready to start the experiments and pumped in the contaminated air through the ceiling. The four woke; disorientated and frightened they tried to get out but realised the futility of escape.

Eiliyah spoke. "You will not be harmed. You'll be well fed, kept warm and in a few days released, so the better you behave the quicker we'll let you go," speaking through the intercom feeling a prick of conscience as she lied.

"Nothing will change for the first few days," said Hadi.

"One of us needs to be constantly observing them. We start tomorrow. From here on we will watch in four-hour shifts."

"Is that really necessary, we have the cameras in place," feeling it a waste of time.

Eiliyah was adamant. "If anyone escapes and raises an alarm, all we've worked for will collapse; a small inconvenience to pay to eliminate even the smallest of risks."

Early the following morning, the guinea pigs were fed.

"The disease doesn't become infectious until symptoms start to show, so we won't need our personal protection equipment in the incubation period. No point in unnecessarily frightening them," said Kanval. "I spent a week in Liberia last year and saw close up the virulence of the disease; one nurse, French I think, followed all the protocols, wore full equipment and still contracted the disease. Add to that an airborne strain, and you have a world under siege with no effective antidote. The three of us have developed a vaccine but we don't know how effective it'll be and if agreed, I would like to try it on our human specimens and inject two for comparison."

"If we achieve that, we'll not only have our weapon of mass destruction but can walk through the carnage unscathed and change the world into our image in Allah's name."

Sadeen laughed. "Most of our research is what we've stolen from other Ebola research projects, we just added to it."

Eiliyah smirked wryly. "Muhammed said, to achieve our objective of a caliphate, lying, deceiving and cheating the infidels is a purity; against apostates the same, but they rank lower and should suffer death by a thousand cuts," she gave a maniacal grin and laughed, "but I'll settle for them suffering under Ebola."

On the third day, the first man started sweating and showing a fever. His voice sounding hoarse followed by weakness. He started to bang his head against the wall complaining of muscle cramps. His bowels exploded and sprayed the floor with diarrhea. His face became swollen and red, and he coughed constantly, his body contorting in shock; screaming, delusional and confused, he held his stomach. Kanval had seen it before. The others, despite knowing what would happen, still felt a sense of shock; loathing twisting their faces as the man slowly shouted out his pain, growing weaker as each minute ticked forward. Occasionally, between screams, he called for salvation, clawing wall and floor, rolling in his own excrement, vomit and blood, praying to his god against the pain invading his body. His nose, mouth, bottom and eyes bled; his skin took on a dark and pallid tint as he bled internally. His body, in the last stage of death, stiffened and then he was still. Eiliyah turned on the overhead sprinklers to wash the filth away, as if looking for absolution.

The others had also started their journey towards death. The woman bled heavily from her vagina, a sign that she could be pregnant. Their jailers didn't care, for the people before them were less than animals, less than a cockroach, and they were at war. Buried deep inside their subconscious minds, they knew they were perpetuating evil, but they were trying to convince themselves they were stopping a far greater evil in a world filled with non-believers and blasphemers against Muhammad and Allah, deserving no mercy. They were agents of their god and the end justified the means. Every action of the captives' march into death was recorded in high definition colour.

This game of evil was not over for the two who had been vaccinated. They started off with the standard Ebola signs but after the vomiting and diarrhoea stages they rallied and the symptoms started to reverse whether by the antidote or naturally recovery was debatable; there stayed an element of uncertainty, but the four felt the coincidence was just too convenient and were heartened they had found the golden elixir in Allah to march forward toward glory. Abyan arrived with Taban, a pathologist, to conclude the final process.

Wearing protective clothes, they drained the dead bodies of blood storing the contents at an optimal temperature, dissected them, burned the parts, and cleaned the boxes. They subdued the two survivors by pumping into their boxes a sleeping drug, and, still wearing protective clothing, strapped the two bodies to tables, examined and later killed them, draining the blood for future analysis, dissected the bodies and burnt them. Disinfecting the whole area, they burned all clothes, removed equipment, leaving the place cleansed and empty as if they had never been there. Storing the blood in another location for later distribution, they congratulated themselves on a job executed to perfection and dispersed, four back to the UK, Taban back to France, Eiliyah to Tenerife.

Chapter Seven

James set up a lunch meeting for the following day with Debra and Jennie suggesting the place where he normally ate. He'd been in the other dimension a few days not the one day he had told Carolyn. This was something that couldn't be avoided but he had no way of informing her, knowing she'd fall into a paroxysm of worry but he would have to handle that when he got back.

The television news reports were full of criticism against the joint alliance forces getting things so wrong. Many children had been killed and the public was calling for restraint and for those responsible to be held accountable and punished. He knew this would never happen. The pilot and those involved at central command would be protected from exposure; still, when something like this happened, it heightened the hate already endemic in a small part of the Muslim community and in others disillusioned with the present political elites. Already, there were demonstrations around the country with voices shouting that the war be stopped and to let these people live as they wished, arguing it was their country and others had no right to interfere where sovereignty should hold sway and the rest of the world should stay well away.

Much of what he had read and heard was hogwash. A central platform of ISIS and their connected affiliated partners had enshrined doctrine and wanted to export their brand of government around the world by violent jihad. No one disputed it was tragic that so many innocents had died and it should not have happened, but it had and to call for restraint and peace against an enemy that was so far off the scale of common decency as the Mariana trench was deep was not an option.

These barbarous, deranged terrorists who glorified death and destruction, prayed towards Mecca but their true god was the devil. Yes, James thought, barbarous and deranged, that's the correct term, to call them Islamists or Muslims or followers of Muhammed and Allah demeaned the billions of true believers in the faith. A faith that preached peace and wellbeing not the small part of the Mecca scripts the maniacs quoted, isolating, chanting, and advocating hate, torture and death towards homosexuality, lesbianism, and calling rape a woman's fault. Where every apostate should be executed and infidels were less than pork; frankly, there could be no negotiating. The two sides were too far apart, for the pillar of their ideology was not love but blind hatred and intolerance.

James needed to get these thoughts out of his head and think on pleasantries; he closed his eyes and pictured Carolyn laughing at him a few days ago when he couldn't find his car keys when they were in his hand and the hot sex she never tired of giving him. The rest of the day he caught up on news and articles from the internet, but generally, he was just skimming until it was time to go out to dinner. At the restaurant, he shared pleasant conversation with a man sitting alone at the bar and they spent the rest of the evening dining together and exchanged phone numbers before parting. When he got back to his flat an email was waiting from Jennie asking him if he minded changing the location for lunch the following day giving him another restaurant and informing him they'd both be there around 12.30pm and were looking forward to seeing him again. The following morning another story broke; an aid worker returning home last week from abroad had developed symptoms of Ebola and had been quarantined. The nightmare of this disease was growing closer. He changed his clothes and left to keep his lunch date.

When he arrived at the restaurant the two women were there to greet him, faces aglow with happiness. A beer and two filled wine glasses rested on the table. They hugged, said their greetings, sat, studied the menu, ordered, and began to talk.

Jennie smiled at him. "We both have the afternoon and evening free. We were beginning to think we'd never see you again. It has been quite a while."

"Been traveling here and abroad with my job," he lied. "What's been filling your days?"

"We're on full alert; the powers to be are worried. We are all on standby, something big is afoot."

"Can you share?"

"They believe a significant, their words not mine, terrorist attack is imminent and we are to prepare for the worse."

"Any idea where?"

"Multiple places, simultaneous attacks."

"Can you get to those responsible before it happens?"

"That's it, James, if what they tell us is correct, they just don't know."

"What's the attack method?"

"Gas bombs, but they've also told us to be on our guard against germ warfare. We have also had a number of urgent briefs on what we need to look for and report upon when certain symptoms are displayed in a patient. There is so much misinformation out there it's hard to know what to believe."

"That is only to be expected with Aids and Ebola and with all these constant terrorist attacks. I've read this morning we have a case of Ebola reported in this country but I can't see that being anything but coincidental."

"James, there are at least a dozen cases here but we are keeping it under wraps. This one is a real frightener and makes Aids look like a mild sneeze on a sunny day."

"Could be the authorities are on alert and are preparing for the worse and it has nothing to do with terrorism."

"Could it be Ebola is the weapon of attack?"

The conversation he had with John and Carolyn came into his mind. "Not sure, but terrorists could attack us, using chlorine or phosgene or even mustard gas. The options are numerous so why not use germs."

"We had a lecture last month on this saying these old poisons were difficult to implement. But I agree, an attack with gas in any confined space would do real damage; it's happened in Japan, and recently in France and is used in Syria by both sides. You could well be right James, germ warfare the new old weapon. The medical briefs we've been given devotes a large section to poisons and contagious diseases, what symptoms to look for and what protocols we must follow and report upon. The term they used is nuclear biological chemical warfare."

"I heard yesterday from the Chief Constable there's been an outbreak of Ebola in Tenerife but I have little evidence. The authorities there state a few isolated cases have appeared; it's under control and no one need panic."

"To use the word nuclear denotes the seriousness of the threat," said James, growing more concerned as the discussion unfolded. "How can the case be isolated? Tenerife is an island, someone must have brought it there. Do you know what part of the island is affected?"

Debra looked at her phone. "Los Cristianos, two cases, Buenavista del Norte, three cases, Puerto la Cruz, four cases and in the north, Santa Cruz, six cases."

James' mouth fell open. "That's not a few isolated cases, the whole island is infected. I think it's an attack!"

Jennie looked at Debra for confirmation of what James said. "Not sure, could be a person with the disease visited the four places."

"Think Debra. The disease only becomes infectious after symptoms show. Why would an ill person visit four separate locations? Not impossible, I admit, but come on, highly improbable."

Jennie's eyes narrowed. "You are saying it's a deliberate attack?"

"Seems that way."

Everyone remained silent for a few moments, "yes, a deliberate, planned attack."

"Makes no sense. Why Tenerife, an island, where the virus can be isolated and contained? To maximize casualties, Europe or some other highly populated area would have a far greater impact."

"Jennie is right, how could they do it? No one in their right mind would go out to deliberately infect themselves. It's not logical."

"I agree, no normal person, but a terrorist who glories in death would have no such scruples."

Debra winced. "This is Bram Stoker stuff, something coming to life out of hell."

"There's not much we can do about the situation, and thankfully, it is a few thousand miles away. How is your friend Courtney?"

"A high court judge now but she still hasn't fully recovered from her brother's death but in fairness Brian, her husband, has been marvellously supportive."

"Does he know of her other life?"

"In what way?"

"Come on Jennie, her flat, her other sex partners and playing her little threesomes with you two."

"No, but I know she loves him. Both our husbands are also in the dark. What they don't know can't hurt them."

"I wouldn't necessarily agree with you but it's none of my business, but when they do find out the trust will be gone and the marriage, even if you stay together, will have been damaged perhaps irreversibly, with no comeback."

They both looked at him as if he had suddenly grown horns. Jennie glared at him. "You were only too happy to see our legs splayed apart under you and my mouth swallowing your penis."

He laughed. "Most enjoyable as well; the difference is my wife knows and is happy with our joint arrangement, so trust is not an issue."

"If my husband was that accommodating, I'd tell him in a heartbeat."

"How will you know Jennie if you don't discuss it with him?"

"Risk is too high; besides, I know of at least two affairs he has had both lasting a few months."

"You'd rather sneak around behind each other's back! Up to you, I suppose. On a different matter, what information do you have on the spate of rapes and murders over the last few months?"

"We know they are committed by the same person or persons. The similarity is obvious; we had a few suspects but had to let them go for lack of evidence. Another body was found this morning."

"In your investigations, have you come across a Russell Mackintosh?"

"No, that name means nothing to me, why?"

"It may be worth devoting a little time in investigating him."

Jennie became defensive. "What do you know?"

"I have come across his name and know he is a sexual predator and has a violent personality."

She was getting more adamant. "How did you come by this information?"

He was being backed into a corner and sorry he'd mentioned anything, but he had and it was too late now and needed a believable excuse. "A friend of mine overheard a conversation about him and how he'd foiled a potentially explosive situation that he believed would have led to rape or worse."

Jennie's eyes lit up. "Name the person and I'll make the call now."

This was getting worse; he was now in the corner and had nowhere to turn. "To tell you the truth, I had the information from an informer not directly from the source and I can't divulge that information. Just look and see what turns up."

She had the bit between her teeth. James had opened the box on a lead into multiple rapes and murders and she was determined to not only look inside the box but study its contents piece by piece. Her eyes bored into him, voice determined, posture forward, upright, challenging. "I need every piece of information you have, contact, names, addresses."

"Give him a break, Jennie, he's in the same game as you, stop being so haughty."

She pulled back a little but still held her stance.

"Come on Jennie I must protect my sources, you know that. Without saying what I do or to whom I report, you need to take it as read that I have given you all the information I can. Now use it and see if there is any validity in what I've just told you," he said with finality.

She was immediately on the phone instructing Russell Mackintosh be picked up and questioned, then looked at James, apologised for her overbearing behaviour, and gulped a large mouthful of wine. "We've been looking for a lead for months into these crimes and have over fifty people working on it across different forces as well as a central team collecting and collating information. I got a little carried away."

"No apology needed. It could be nothing. Shall we talk about something a little less troublesome?"

"How about dinner tonight?" Debra glared at her friend. "I mean both of you." They laughed.

"I'll cook a meal at my place you bring the wine, say around 7 pm, does that sound like a plan?"

"Done!" they raised their wine glasses in a toast, drank the contents and left together. James went to the supermarket to purchase the food with a few bottles of wine and returned to his flat to prepare for the evening meal. They arrived together wearing black, almost identical lowcut floor length dresses, dark stockings, eyeliner, lipstick, fingernails painted black looking more akin to goths dressed for Halloween than two professional women going out to dinner. James burst out laughing as they winked, walked past, and handed him two bottles of wine. In the lounge, they simultaneously pirouetted and flopped down on the settee.

"What can I say, ladies, two dark chocolates waiting to be eaten," he chortled.

"Don't forget licked," replied Debra.

"Licked, sucked, caresses, texture felt, until the chocolate starts to melt and then devoured."

"I like the imagery; let's see if we can get you devouring until we are all filled up and satisfied after we've eaten your wonderful food and drunk the wine," Debra giggled, swishing her hair.

"Before you ask, yes we can stay the night."

James gave them a big grin. "I haven't asked yet."

"Fait accompli my dear James," Jennie winked at him. "On a serious note, we have picked up Russell Mackintosh, he's being interviewed as we speak."