BioKill

by Handley, Stuart

  Bomani was too experienced to lose against the likes of his opponent; he was instantly on top of the now bleeding Yusuf, wielding the pistol like a club, pounding Yusuf’s face. He didn’t notice the stranger rushing down on him until it was too late. Tommy’s work boot drove into Bomani’s stomach like a runaway train, sending him flying. Winded by the kick, he momentarily lost himself in pain but quickly regained his composure. He felt for the pistol in his hand; but it wasn’t there. Tommy had seen it and flew through the air like an all-star player, landing heavily on the gravel yard. Bomani tried to reach the fallen weapon — but he came second. Tommy pointed the barrel in Bomani’s face while the Takfir scrambled to his feet. Bomani spat his anger. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and slowly stood up, never taking his eyes off the farmer.

  “Get off my land. Get away from my family.” The voice was low. Bomani had no choice: he backed off, watching, waiting to see if the man with the gun would make a mistake; he didn’t. He reached the van and got in. The engine started and the van turned away, back the way it had come into the farm. Back out onto the road.

  Tommy’s hand holding the pistol started to shake; it shook the whole time he had the weapon pointed towards the van disappearing out his road gate. He turned towards the other fighter, the younger man. He was still on the ground lying on his side, his legs tucked up. Tommy approached him cautiously; he hoped his gut reaction was correct and they had nothing to fear from him. He studied the fallen man: darkish olive skin, he looked Middle Eastern. The clothes he wore were what city people wore. The man looked up at him, he wasn’t old, early twenties. Their eyes met. Tommy felt as if the young man’s eyes were trying to say something… but he couldn’t make out what. The man didn’t say anything, he blinked quickly a few times, then lifted a hand from around his stomach and brought it up to his eyes. The hand was dripping bright red blood. Tommy’s mouth fell open, the man was gut shot.

  “JESS! JESS! I need help.”

  The woman appeared at the barn door, brandishing a pitchfork. “Jess, where’s Bobbie-Joe?”

  “She’s safe at the back of the barn. I put her in the cab of the old truck.”

  “The man’s been shot, Jess. He’s been shot!”

  Jess ran over and stood beside her husband. The pair looked down at the stranger lying on his side. “He’s trying to say something… Oh my God… What do we do?”

  Tommy leaned down. Yusuf made a guttural sound, but no actual words came out. The frustration could be seen on his face; in his eyes.

  “What are you trying to say?”

  Yusuf mustered every ounce of energy he had left. The words came out weak, but this time they were audible. “I’m sorry.” A smile enveloped his grimy face, a smile that would last forever in the minds of the two people whose lives he’d just saved. Yusuf gave a small cough; blood oozed from his open mouth and trickled down his cheek. His head rolled back. Allah had reclaimed a lost soul.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  The white van sped down the road, its driver following the directions from the GPS. Bomani glanced at his wristwatch. It was getting late in the day; another couple of hours and the sun would set. It had been no more than five minutes since the farmer’s boot had buried itself in his stomach and sent him flying, his muscles were still sore. But that wasn’t what made him squint his eyes and grip the steering wheel as if he was choking someone to death; he had left the farmer and his family alive. The more he thought of it, the more the anger welled up. He knew he should have been more professional, he knew the consequences of leaving witnesses alive, he knew it, he knew IT, he KNEW IT! “Arrgh.” The van braked hard then skewed off line as Bomani plunged his foot hard down on the brake pedal. As the van came to a complete stop, Bashir fell back into his seat, lucky not to have been catapulted through the windscreen.

  Bomani was like a wounded buffalo. He thumped the steering wheel with both hands, unlatched his door then flung it open, throwing open the door with a fury that took Bashir completely by surprise. Bomani picked up a large rock, the size of a large grapefruit and with another forceful cry of effort hurled it as far as he could. The rock shot through the air arching upwards before gravity took over. With every yard it covered rationality returned to the man who heaved it until it finally landed with a thump. Bomani exhaled loudly, and turned back to the van.

  Only a very few hours ago, Bashir would have been shocked and somewhat threatened by the exhibition he had just witnessed. Now was different… now he was different. The face Bomani stared into as he pulled himself back into the driver’s seat held his attention for what felt like an inordinately long time. For once, in a long, long while, Bomani stared into the eyes of another man who made it seem as if he was looking into a mirror. “Are you with me or are you against me?”

  Bashir calmly replied, “What’s your name?”

  Bomani remained silent, his question had been replied to with a question. It was no longer a boy, a young man, who sat next to him, it was something else. He needed to find out what. “Bomani.”

  “What’s your full name… Bomani?”

  A short period of silence. “My name is Akins Bomani. Are you with me or against me?”

  “Akins… a strong man. You are well named, my brother. I’m with you… Akins.” Bashir placed his hand, palm up, in between himself and Bomani. He then tensed his fingers and drew them in together like a bird of prey tightly clenching its claw. “Let us crush these American infidels in the name of Allah!”

  Bomani felt the rush of power and victory flood through his veins. He placed a hand on his fellow Takfir’s shoulder… and smiled.

  *

  Matt Lilburn and his team left the injured caterer on the side of the road amid the man’s pleas to get him to a hospital. Lilburn explained medical help was on its way and they couldn’t offer him the specialist assistance he required. After prying his fingers loose from the sides of the Jeep the men left the caterer half bent over and hurling outraged abuse. Lilburn had no other option — the virus was his priority.

  As he sat in the front passenger seat, Lilburn looked around. The sun was losing its warmth. He glanced down at his wristwatch. Why hadn’t he heard that the drone had picked up the van? It was heading in the same general direction inland. Police were everywhere; there were eyes on the ground, in the sky. “Pull up over here.” The driver brought the Jeep to a standstill on the side of the road. Getting out, Lilburn moved a few paces from the vehicle. Looking down the road and deep in thought, he wondered. Where the hell are you? His phone rang. “Lilburn.”

  “Matt, it’s Allan Hall. We haven’t picked the cell back up. Have you anything to report?”

  “We’ve just come from the victim they released and we’re now back on the trail but it’s gone cold, sir. I would have assumed the drone would have made contact by now.”

  “So would I, Matt. I spoke to Syracuse and they’ve been systematically searching out from your last position but they’ve come up with jack-shit. We have local enforcement on the ground, road blocks, still nothing.”

  “What’s the drone’s search pattern?”

  “Concentrating on a one-eighty-degree arc from the victim’s position, momentum in the same general direction they’ve been traveling. We pretty well have that area saturated.”

  Lilburn bent down and picked up a stone. Holding the phone to his ear with one hand, he juggled the egg-shaped stone in the other. The day had been one frustration after another: they seemed to get close to the cell then the next thing they would lose them. Quite forgetting whom he was on the phone to, Lilburn suddenly spun around and threw the stone as hard and as far as he could. “Ah fuck it.” The stone held an angle parallel to the ground for a considerable distance before contacting a road sign. The rock bounced off with such a force that it rebounded back on its original flight path. Lilburn realized what he’d just seen. “Holy shit!”

  “What? Now hang…”

  “No, sir, not you. Listen. The third man, the driver
, the one we know next to nothing about. I think he’s the brains, the leader. He would have been handpicked for this job — a cunning fox with two chickens. This operation he’s carrying out, it’s well planned. The reason the drone’s not picking him up is because he’s not heading in the same direction as before. He’s trying to throw us off the trail — again. Sir, I reckon he’s backtracked.”

  “Damn! I think you’re right — anything else and we’d have been right on top of them by now. Let me talk to Director Lopez, meanwhile you follow your instinct, see if they did double back. I’ll divert some assets towards you.” Hall hung up.

  Lilburn walked back to the Jeep. “Let’s see that map again. Open it out on the hood.”

  The four agents gathered around the front of the Jeep. Lilburn explained what he thought might have happened. “There’s where we just left that man on the side of the road. Here’s where we are now so where’s the best and quickest place to turn around and double back the way you came?”

  One of the agents had an idea. “Just turn around the way they come after doing surgery on the caterer.”

  Lilburn shook his head. “Nah. The caterer would have seen them. Much too risky, it would give away their new route. They left him alive… why? Why not kill him… unless you want him to tell the authorities he saw them take off in the same direction they were initially heading. Right? So you carry on, down the road and take a side road, one that’ll lead back to where you want to go. So where is the nearest road they would have taken?”

  One of the agents tapped the map. “This intersection, right here. They go down here then turn again down that road.”

  Lilburn looked up from the map. He gave a wink. “And where’s that road?”

  The men looked up at the road sign the rock had bounced off. “Right there, sir.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  “Well, it makes goddamn sense to me, Director.”

  “It doesn’t to me.” Director Lopez lowered her voice until just above a whisper. “And don’t go getting all high and mighty. You do not outrank me and let’s be quite clear; you and your staff are to work in conjunction with my staff, on an equal footing.”

  “Why won’t you even consider the possibility, Suzanna?” Hall could see some staff in the ops room had stopped talking and were listening. “Let’s go into the meeting room and discuss this.”

  Inside the room Hall closed the door behind them. “We have one of this country’s best field operatives on the ground. We have police swarming around the place and a fucking great drone buzzing around the sky. All giving us diddly-squat. Lilburn has a damn good point, the man thinks like one of them. There was a good reason why the President asked for him by name to head the field ops on this.”

  “He’s just one man. One man’s opinion. Which I do not share!”

  “Lord give me strength. If you don’t like it, and it’s plain to see you don’t — if you can’t even see it has potential — then… go fucking complain to the President!” Director Hall turned and strode off to the door. He stopped and turned back to face Director Lopez, his finger raised in the air — pointing, shaking as if to punctuate a fact. He lowered it, then walked out the door. Suzanna Lopez stood still, staring at the open door.

  Director Hall wasn’t about to spend any more time arguing. He had worked alongside Lopez for some years now and had never had a reason to question her capabilities or plain common sense. One thing he knew for sure was he didn’t have the time right now to delve into her mind for answers. Gut reaction, intuition, it couldn’t be discounted and coming from an experienced operative like Lilburn, then to discredit it outright was wrong, just plain wrong. He picked up the phone and spoke to Syracuse. The drone was re-routed. If he were wrong…

  “Sir, this just came in from the New Jersey Police.”

  Placing his glasses on, Hall reading the note. ‘Halle-fucking-luiah!’

  “Sir?”

  “Take this to Director Lopez.”

  Hall was back on the phone to Lilburn. “Matt. You were right. A pig farmer called in to New Jersey Police — the cell is heading back this way but they’re a man down.” The Director went into further detail, location, time, the retrieval of one handgun. “I’m sending additional assets, we need to saturate the area and secure the cell before nightfall.”

  Director Lopez walked towards the door of the ops room with the note from the New Jersey Police. “Ma’am, I require your signature on this requisition order.” The officer held out pen and paper for the director but she just kept walking, seemingly oblivious to the officer’s request. “Ma’am… Ma’am?” Another man, bent over with his hands resting on a colleague’s desk, watched her appear to snub the request for a signature. Lopez kept on coming and he thought it wise to maneuver himself out of her way, straightening himself up and allowing the director room. There was no thanks for his effort. He looked at her retreating back and muttered to his colleague, “What a bitch!”

  Dr. Crawston’s day had seemed very long. Her input into the events had been beneficial to the operation but she had hoped for more involvement. Given the expense of bringing her in from London, she had quietly hoped for a lot more. Evangeline stifled a yawn. She needed some fresh air. Director Lopez caught her attention. The woman wouldn’t let her femininity get in the way of her career. No doubt, she thought, the director was as hard as she looked. Discreetly watching her walking towards the door, she couldn’t help noticing the woman’s total lack of response. Way more than usual she was sure, and way more than anything she had noticed previously. Evangeline felt a twinge of compassion. As Lopez left the room, Evangeline decided to see if she was all right.

  As the door to the corridor closed behind Evangeline, she tried to see where the director had gone. A half dozen or so staff wandered the corridor; no one’s hair matched Lopez’s long black length. Oh well, the ladies’ WC seems like a logical place to start.

  Evangeline pushed the door open and entered; the door automatically swung shut. She could hear Lopez talking… and after only a few words she knew it wasn’t a casual conversation. The tone was abrupt, angry. Evangeline turned and grabbed the door handle to walk back out the way she had come in; now wasn’t the time. But something stopped her. Something she heard.

  “We know you’re heading back towards New York and we know you’re one man down. The drone will spot you anytime from now on… Yes, yes I’ll let you know… Correct, those men are agents… His name is Matt Lilburn.”

  Evangeline’s hand flew to her mouth. The conversation Lopez was having abruptly stopped, then started again. She was safe for now.

  “I need to know my son is safe. I need to know you haven’t hurt him… He’d better be. If you harm him in any way, I’ll kill you.”

  Faltering backwards, Evangeline bumped into a wall. Lopez was implicated in the terrorism plot. She had just given out information to someone, under duress it seemed, but given out information nevertheless. Matt Lilburn’s name was mentioned. Evangeline had to think quickly. Director Hall. Reaching for the door handle she pulled… An arm shot out and forced the door shut with a bang. Evangeline turned. In her face was one upset, angry and totally dangerous woman.

  “How much did you hear?”

  “I heard enough to know your actions are treasonable.”

  “That’s a shame. That’s a real shame.”

  Lopez moved with speed and power, grabbing a handful of Evangeline’s hair and whiplashed her arm, held in the other hand, which sent the Englishwoman’s head pole-driving into the nearest wall. Overwhelmed by the violent impact, she moaned. Lopez again grabbed her hair, flinging her into the middle of the room, where she fell awkwardly. Evangeline screamed, more from shock than pain. She knew she had to get to her feet but her opponent was fast. Lopez sent a foot flying at Evangeline’s head, it missed by a fraction of an inch but was followed up with a flurry of kicks. Evangeline tried to block, to no avail so she tried to grab Lopez and pull her down. She twisted to one side and grabbed d
esperately at the other woman’s foot and yanked as hard as she could. Lopez lost her momentum and was pulled violently down, tripping over the prone Evangeline. Scrambling to her feet Evangeline was horrified to find Lopez had done the same. She knew she would probably lose, but she wasn’t about to give in. Grabbing Lopez by an arm she swung her towards the cubicles. Lopez hung on and both women fell crashing onto the floor next to a toilet bowl.

  Luckily for Evangeline, Lopez hit her head on the white porcelain bowl, knocking herself unconscious. Evangeline staggered back out of the cubicle, then fell backwards. Propping herself up on her hand and elbow and breathing hard, she saw the director lying still.

  Pulling herself painfully to her feet, her ribs aching, Evangeline looked at herself in the mirror. Slowly her breath came back, and her pulse slowed. Ruffled up… but nothing some water thrown over her face couldn’t cure, and some almighty bruises were already on their way. Turning on the cold tap she cupped her hands. It had been one hell of a day.

  “Doctor, I beg you. Please don’t.”

  Evangeline spun around. Lopez was standing, propped against the cubicle door, her head low. Without her trademark arrogance, she was almost unrecognisable. She was crying.

  “You bitch! Are you actually doing what I think you’re doing?”

  Lopez raised her head and closed her eyes. “Yes. They have my son. They have my only child.”

  Evangeline stood still. Slowly she moved from seeing the woman standing before her as the stone-faced cow of a director she knew to a mother sacrificing everything for her child. Tentatively she took a few steps forward, then a few more. “But how can I trust anything you say? You’re a traitor to your country.”

  Lopez said nothing.

  “I can’t let you do this to innocent people. How could you?”

  “Are you a mother? No. Then you can’t possibly know. I never raised Robby. I gave him up at birth. I doubt if anyone here knows, I kept it a secret, took extended leave when I was pregnant, spewed my guts out in these toilets when I had morning sickness. I sacrificed him for my country. I sacrificed him once and I won’t do it again. He’s only seven years old. I… I… just can’t.”