BioKill

by Handley, Stuart

  The pilot gained a visual. “A bus down there, I’ll take it down for a closer look.” The helicopter dipped forward then slowed as it came alongside and above the traveling bus.

  “Wrong bus,” Lilburn exclaimed. The pilot continued on. Two more buses were discounted due to being the wrong bus company before their luck changed. A blue, grey and white bus with its distinctive greyhound logo was spotted.

  “Thar she blows.” The pilot kept pace with the vehicle below. “If we try to stop her here we could end up in all sorts of shit with the traffic following behind.”

  Lilburn had to agree. Stopping a large bus in the middle of a highway posed some problems. “What do you suggest?”

  “Every now and again there’s room for a vehicle to pull off to the side of the road. Once I see one ahead, I’ll try to time it right so the bus has room to pull in. Let’s hope the driver can read my mind. If there isn’t a safe place for me to stay on the ground, as soon as you boys jump out, I’ll get airborne.”

  “Sounds good to me. You guys all ready back there?” The three nodded.

  It wasn’t long before the pilot spotted what he was looking for. “One pull-off spot coming up… we have a bit of distance between the bus and the nearest cars behind. Now’s as good as ever… I have to time this right… Hang on, here we go.”

  The helicopter swooped in low over the bus, the pilot wanting to gain the driver’s attention. Then pushing the helicopter out to what the pilot thought was a respectful distance, he carried out a tight one-eighty-degree turn and faced the oncoming bus, hovering inches above ground level, rotors close to the second oncoming lane.

  “Go-go-go!” The pilot wasn’t waiting for Lilburn to give the command.

  The last thing the Greyhound bus driver expected was the sudden noise and appearance of something big and loud buzzing just over the top of his bus. Instinctively he ducked and gave an expletive as adrenalin surged through him. As the flying object pulled away ahead he recognized the outline of a helicopter. “What the fuck…” His foot came off the accelerator ready to apply the brakes, which he did as soon as he saw the chopper turn to face him, hovering in his lane, and four men with guns leapt out. The bus slowed and was preparing to stop when the driver was signaled by one of them to pull over off the highway. What the hell? What is this… a bus-jacking? The driver pulled off the road and stopped his vehicle.

  Four men ran towards him as the helicopter lifted upwards and away from the road. The driver looked in his side mirror; he was safely off the road but that was now the least of his worries. There was a loud slap on his front window, a hand was holding up what looked like a wallet hard against the glass. Focusing on the wallet he saw a distinctive emblem and the words Homeland Security. There was a banging on entry door to the side. “Open the door, open the door.”

  Lilburn was the first in the door of the bus. “Police, everyone stay calm and remain seated.”

  The bus driver sat motionless and stunned, as did the passengers, who showed every intention of following orders. The passengers remained silent in their seats, a baby began crying, its mother instantly tried to hush the child, holding it tighter in her arms. Lilburn glanced over the passengers the length of the bus, there were no sudden movements, heads remained still, all eyes were fixated on him and his weapon. A teenage boy, earphones in his ears near the front of the bus, sheepishly blinked then reeled back in his seat as he awoke to a man in the aisle prodding him with a gun. The other three agents entered the bus behind Lilburn. Lilburn slowly proceeded down the aisle only taking quick looks at those in the seats near him while paying most attention to what was ahead, like a lead scout on military patrol, ready to immediately react to a threat. Two officers behind him paid more attention to the individual faces; they dismissed the obvious, blacks, whites, very young and very old. Anyone of interest had their faces compared with photos of the suspects. No one matched. Nearing the rear of the bus, Lilburn was becoming concerned; there were precious few passengers left. Then there was none.

  “Double check.” Lilburn squeezed around the two officers following and hurried back to the bus driver. The third agent had remained at his station by the door.

  “Did any passengers get off the bus?” Lilburn asked the driver.

  “No, sir, none.”

  “You sure? Think carefully.”

  “I’m sure, I’m sure, none got off. We haven’t stopped since leaving New York.”

  “This is the bus to Binghamton, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What time did you leave?”

  “Eleven-thirty from Port Authority.”

  “How many passengers on your list?”

  “Seventeen… there were meant to be nineteen but two didn’t show.”

  “Did you see those two at all?”

  “No, sir.”

  The two agents rechecking the passengers filed past their boss shaking their heads. Shit. “Right, sorry to bother you, folks.” Lilburn raised his voice. “Apologies for interrupting your journey. Thank you for your time.”

  Lilburn was already on his mobile as the Greyhound to Binghamton pulled out into the highway and one startled driver and seventeen rattled passengers resumed their journey.

  “Yes, sir, we did a thorough search. The driver said two scheduled passengers failed to turn up.”

  Director Hall put down the phone. “Dammit, they weren’t on the bus.”

  Immediately Director Lopez made a beeline for Nicco, while quietly uttering profanities under her breath. “Bring up that link to the bus terminal cameras. NOW.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Once more Nicco brought back up on his screen the Port Authority Bus Terminal CCTV cameras. He quickly found the two men again by backing up the tapes; all eyes were focused as the bioterrorists purchased their tickets.

  Director Hall instructed him to follow the two men, step by step, from that point on. Nicco expertly, jumping from camera to camera, kept the targets in sight.

  “There.” Hall pointed to one of the multiple camera shots on the screen. “Targets entering that café.”

  The small group around Nicco watched as the two men appeared to place an order and sat down at a table.

  Hall noticed one of the men glanced at his wrist watch every so often. “That’s the third time he’s checked his watch, they’re waiting for something, or someone. Here we go, they’re off again. Keep on them, Nicco.”

  Nicco tapped the keys and deployed the facial recognition software again. “Come on, baby… good girl.”

  “What’s that? There, that door.” Director Lopez picked up the targets walking into a restroom. “Make sure we get them if they come out elsewhere.”

  “They won’t, ma’am.” Luckily for Nicco, Lopez couldn’t see him rolling his eyes. “Only one way in and one way out.”

  “You want to bet your job on that?” said Lopez.

  Nicco snorted — he wasn’t concerned — he knew the coffee shop.

  “Come on, we’re losing them! Search the other cameras now. Why isn’t facial recognition picking them up?” Lopez sounded irate.

  “Speed up the camera, son.”

  Nicco did just that; shortly the targets reappeared. One of the men could be seen checking the zip on his trousers as they left the men’s restroom.

  They continued to concentrate on the screen in front of them — every so often Yusuf and Bashir disconcertingly disappeared from view. Invariably Nicco was the one who spotted them again. “That’s them… there… taking the escalator down to level two.”

  Lopez nodded. “The Greyhound buses leave from there.”

  Nicco pointed to the targets. “Just… about… to go from this camera and appear in this shot over here, in five, four, three…”

  A large group of what appeared to be a tourist party, all walking close together, passed in front of the camera and obscured the view of the two men.

  “Two… one… and here they… Where did you go, guys? Nicco looked from one cam
era screen shot to the next. “Hey dudes, where did you go?” His fingertips rattled the keyboard, searching, trying different cameras, different views. “Shit man, I can’t find them. Whoa, they ought to be there…”

  “Find them!” Hall said.

  Lopez was furious. “You lost them? They can’t just disappear!”

  “I’m working on it, ma’am, don’t worry, facial recognition will pick them up.”

  “How many minutes have they got to get to their bus?” asked Hall.

  “Um… what time did I say the next bus was?”

  “Eleven thirty.”

  “OK then, let’s see, according to the camera we lost visual of them… at… at eleven twenty-one.”

  Hall did the figures in his head. “They have eight or so minutes, time enough. What’s the time on the CCTVs now?”

  “Eleven twenty-one… eleven twenty-two, sir.”

  “Speed the tape again, go straight to the bus platform, take it forward to eleven-thirty.”

  Nicco did so. “That’s the bus there, sir, just leaving.”

  “Wind the tape back until the bus door shuts.” A few seconds later the still shot was on the screen. “Now reverse the tape, go slow, let’s see if they get aboard. Count the passengers.”

  Nicco counted each and every one.

  So did Hall. “Seventeen passengers, just as Lilburn said. Shit, we’ve lost them. Go back to where we last saw them, scour everything, see where the bastards went.”

  Five minutes later all had drawn a blank; facial recognition had picked up nothing, none of them had picked up a face. The terrorists weren’t on the bus, they hadn’t even boarded. They had vanished.

  “Wait, wait, wait!” Nicco had an idea. “The clothes they were wearing. What was the description?”

  Hall stood up straight and bellowed out. “My notes, someone get those notes on the phone call I had with Lilburn, the names, the description of the clothes the two targets were wearing; move, people, move.”

  There was a flurry of hands.

  “Here it is, sir.”

  Director Hall grabbed the notes. “Go to all exits of Port Authority, eleven twenty-two onwards, look for two distinct items of clothing, a white T-shirt with the words ‘Patriots for Patriots’, the other a black hoodie with ‘I love Montana’ on it. Both carrying blue duffel bags.”

  It was Nicco who first noticed something. “There, leaving this entrance here!” When he blew up the shot, two men could be seen leaving by foot.

  “Are you sure?” Hall leaned forward for a better look.

  “Not really but…”

  “For God’s sake, move on! They don’t look anything like them. Quit wasting time.” Lopez was adamant the two men in the screen shot were not their targets.

  “No, I’m right, look, see what happens if I go back a few frames… See right there, that one at the front, read that writing under the jacket, it’s only a few letters but do you see it?”

  Nicco froze the screen shot then zoomed in on two men walking one behind the other. At first glance these two seemed nothing like the descriptions given or the prior footage. Both men were bearded and wore jackets and baseball caps. However, both were carrying bags slung over their shoulders. Nicco zoomed in on the shot of the leading man — part of his body was obscured by nearby pedestrians but his upper torso was in shot. It showed the man’s unzipped jacket and the incomplete wording on the front of his white T-shirt, ‘…ots for Pa…’

  Lopez still wasn’t convinced. “Those two have beards, for heaven’s sake.”

  “No wait, ma’am. That white T-shirt, extrapolate the first and last words and what do we have? Patriots for Patriots.” Nicco had come up trumps again.

  “Yes, we do. Yes, we damn well do.” Hall now had the slightest piece of a clue and he wasn’t about to let go. “Can you get closer to their faces?”

  Nicco enlarged the first man’s face. The picture was grainy and not as productive as he liked. “Best I can do.”

  Director Hall’s hope dwindled. “Can’t be sure… though the beards could be fake of course.”

  Nicco wasn’t giving up. Bringing up the previous shots of the terrorists he studied the images thoughtfully. He had an idea. “The shoes… Look, on these last shots they’re wearing sneakers, the guy with the T-shirt has Nike and the other guy… has Adidas. Now back to the bearded jocks and… a match, it’s a match.”

  Hall reeled back. “Christ, you’re right. They’ve put on jackets and caps.”

  “And false beards. No wonder facial recognition didn’t pick them up.”

  “Track them, I want to see where those sneaky bastards have gone. Suzanna,” Hall looked pleased as he turned to his fellow director. “We’re back on track.”

  Lopez smiled and folded her arms.

  Nicco expertly followed the path of the two suspects as they made their way from Port Terminal and followed a side walk. The recent upgrading by New York City to the Domain Awareness System Nicco named ‘the dashboard’ and its now greater than four thousand surveillance cameras made the tracking of persons or vehicles a relatively easy matter. A faded red sedan traveling towards the terrorists pulled up in the first lane next to them, holding up traffic behind. The two bearded men could be seen running to the car and wasted no time in opening the doors and getting in. If the camera had been equipped with sound, the viewers watching at Homeland would have heard the honking of horns and the abuse thrown at the driver of the red sedan before it took off and caught up with the mainstream traffic.

  “Follow that car. And for chrissakes don’t lose it.”

  Nicco was the bloodhound and his handler was Hall.

  “Someone get me the New York Police Commissioner on the phone, pronto,” Hall screamed out. Turning to his right, he started to talk to Director Lopez. “Suzanna, I want you… Where the fuck did she go? Anyone see her leave?”

  “I just saw her go out the door, sir,” replied a man two desks away.

  Dr. Evangeline Crawston stood over the sink of the restroom down the corridor from the ops room. Looking at her reflection in the mirror, she thought over the last few days. A short while ago she was in London giving an address at King’s College then out of the blue a handsome stranger whisked her to America and an important role in combating a bioterrorism threat she had just been lecturing about. Where would she be tomorrow? Life, she pondered, could be so adventurous. Especially with a man like Matt Lilburn. She screwed up her face. Pity he didn’t seem to have a romantic bone in his gorgeous body. Oh well, you can’t have everything. Evangeline gave a wry smile, as she splashed refreshing water over her face.

  Pulling the door of the restroom open to leave, Evangeline was startled as she and Director Lopez came face to face, bumping awkwardly into each other. “Oh my goodness, I am so sorry,” she gasped.

  Lopez had her mobile to her ear and let out an expletive, then brushed past without as so much as an excuse me. With a raised eyebrow, Evangeline continued on back to the ops room mulling over the way in which the director handled the awkward situation. Stress or rudeness? A bit of the former and a lot of the latter, she decided.

  A staffer approached Director Hall and handed him a note. “Sir, report from Plum Island on the samples supplied this morning.”

  Hall took in the contents of the note. After a brief pause as he took in the implications, he violently crumpled the paper before flinging the ball to the floor.

  “Commissioner, line two, sir.”

  Hall picked up the nearest phone. “Denby, Allan Hall. I think it’s time I brought you up to speed on a situation we have…”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Is the virus secure?”

  “The spray cans are in our backpacks,” Bashir answered.

  “Good, very good.” The driver, Egyptian by birth, the heavy weathered lines on his dark chiseled face mostly hidden by a trimmed black beard, peered through his sunglasses at the young man sitting in the front passenger seat to his right. Behind him he could see the
other one, al-Nasseri, leaning forward in his seat, one arm resting on his friend’s headrest. Akins Bomani saw that both had a wide-eyed, excited expression, even through the false beards. They would need firm restraint.

  “Put your seatbelts on, we do not want to attract attention from the infidels. Take off those beards and place them out of sight.”

  “What do you think, Yusuf? They make me look older. I think I’ll keep mine on.”

  Bomani wasn’t about to play games with these soft Americans. He was brought up on the streets in his homeland — and he was hard, tough and self-reliant. He could still remember the first man he killed when he was twelve years old. His father had placed the gun in his hand, the victim, a kafir, a Muslim unbeliever who rejected the truth of Islam, sat bound and gagged having been beaten by his father and uncle in the man’s own home. Bomani’s father told him to place the barrel of the gun between the man’s eyes and pull the trigger. That was forty years ago and even now he could feel the gun go off, bucking in his small hand, the blood and brain matter splattering his face and white robes. It was red and white and when some of it landed in his open mouth, warm and sticky. Bomani had lost count since then of the men and women he had killed. Now he kept his mouth closed, whether he used a gun, a knife or a club.

  Bashir Zuabi ran a hand through his stuck-on beard, while trying to find a reflection of himself in one of the car windows. He felt a hard jab in his side; when he looked down he saw the barrel of a pistol pointing at his kidneys.

  “I will not say it again.”

  The two young men were left in no doubt who was in charge. The older man, the one wearing Western jeans and a long-sleeved blue shirt — the one with the real beard. They immediately pulled the whiskers off and buckled their seatbelts. Though neither knew what the other was thinking, both began to realize they were puppets — who had just met one of the puppeteers. The sounds of New York traffic surrounded them. Soon they would be leaving them behind for the quiet of the vast and sprawling countryside. Suddenly they became comforting, familiar. Gingerly, without moving his head, Bashir let his eyes move across to the driver. Bomani reached for his sunglasses and took them off, then turned his head towards his passenger. Their eyes met and Bashir felt himself start to tremble, as those incredibly dark, mesmerizing eyes bored through his head. He tried to look away but he couldn’t — it was Yusuf, in the back seat, who broke the spell.