by Bobby Akart
“Turn here,” said Mac. “In the winter, we have to park at the top of the hill and ride snowmobiles back and forth to our vehicles.”
“Snowmobiles?” asked Hunter, receiving a nod from Mac. “Sweet.”
“You’re like an overgrown kid,” muttered Mac as she looked over the side of the ridge toward Blue Lakes, which was a couple of lakes connected by a creek.
“I am, and this is my kind of playground,” Hunter quipped.
The driveway opened up to a clearing and a beautiful lodge-style log cabin set on the edge of a ridge overlooking the lake to the west and the valley toward the east. As they exited the truck, Hunter looked in all directions and didn’t see another house.
“Do you have neighbors?”
“Just one, back by the highway. My parents bought this place because it had been grandfathered in before the Summit County building regulations prevented further construction up here.”
“Why did they halt construction?” asked Hunter.
“Well, it was part conservation and part rock slide,” replied Mac. “The lake and the surrounding area became part of a hiking trail frequented by people around the world. Quandary Peak is a well-known fourteener.”
“A fourteener?” quizzed Hunter.
“Yeah. The peaks around here rise to over fourteen thousand feet above sea level and have been called fourteeners by avid hikers,” replied Mac. “Anyway, Summit County decided the beauty of the trailhead was paramount to the construction of more homes. But really, the rocks are an issue.”
Hunter turned around to look toward Quandary Peak, which was barely visible above the tall pine trees. “Aren’t you worried about the rocks?”
“We’ve never had an incident here at the house. The road gets blocked from time to time, especially in the spring as the snow melts. But the packed winter snow maintains the mountain in the winter. Over a hundred inches of snow falls here from November through April. The peak shows for a brief period in the summer but is completely covered with snow as early as September.”
Mac led Hunter to the front door and opened it, revealing a beautiful all-wood interior. The home, made of post and beam construction, was two stories plus a basement. A loft was built into the A-frame roof line, providing additional bedrooms. Windows filled the southern exposure overlooking the valley. A massive two-story stone fireplace split the room in half—dining on the left and living space on the right.
“Very impressive, Mac. Your parents have a fantastic spot.”
“Thanks. Come on, I’ll show you around.”
The home had four bedrooms and four full baths. The entire basement was devoted to storage. As Hunter followed Mac around, his mind raced at the possibilities. Mac’s parents had provided him just what the doctor ordered.
Chapter 28
Day Thirty-Nine
DTRA/CIA Facility
Fort Collins
It was Mac’s first day on the job and she was anxious to get started. After receiving a lecture from Agent Surrey for not checking her sidearm at the front door, Mac began to set up her office and unpacked her research. She’d just settled in when her cell phone rang. It was Dr. Walter Latham, her former microbiology professor at Northwestern, who had been analyzing the Y. pestis samples and data to determine what molecular changes had occurred to make it antibiotic resistant. They spoke briefly and then Mac asked if he could call her back via Skype. She wanted to gather her new associates to hear his findings.
Dr. Matta and Dr. Gene gathered in the only conference room in the facility that also had a large monitor that was enabled for Skype. Dr. Latham, the consummate showboat professor, relished the opportunity to lecture via virtual classroom to his former student and her peers. After everything was set up, Dr. Latham began.
“First, my apologies to you, Mac, for the lengthy time our analysis has taken. Twelve days is an eternity when dealing with a rare bird like this one. On the one hand, the scientist responsible for this groundbreaking genetic modification should be applauded. However, that same scientist should be drawn and quartered. This is an abomination and violates all laws of medicine and humanity. It is the perfect killer.”
Dr. Latham turned to his old-school chalkboard and wrote NDM-1 in large letters and circled it. His face grew grim as he began.
“NDM-1, New Delhi metallo-lactamase-1. Alone, as an enzyme, it does not cause disease. However, it has the potential to change the characteristics of bacteria to make them resistant to antibiotics. My apologies for stating the obvious as I go along here, especially with a fellow geneticist in the room, but it helps this old prof keep his train on the tracks.”
Mac and her associates laughed. Dr. Latham was getting on in years, but his energy was obvious. “Absolutely, Professor Latham, the floor is yours,” said Mac to her former mentor.
“NDM-1 was first isolated in a Swedish patient of Indian origin who travelled to his native country back in 2009. Nothing was known about this enzyme, and in spite of their best efforts, scientists in India were unable to track its origin.”
Dr. Matta interjected, “Professor, I am familiar with the background of NDM-1. Following this patient zero, there were more cases in the United Kingdom, Asia and Croatia, where NDM-1 was found in a variety of diseases, including E. coli, pneumonia, and staph. All of those patients had become ill while visiting India. Interestingly, they were treated, declared cured of their respective illnesses, and released. The NDM-1 bacteria festered in their bodies for some time before causing their death.”
“Yes, your recollection is on target,” added Dr. Latham. “I’ve researched this as our findings began to focus on this possibility. The NDM-1 changed the genetic makeup of the common diseases you mentioned and greatly increased their incubation periods.”
“This explains the fact that the patients were released from treatment without the attending physicians being aware of the festering bacteria within their bodies,” said Mac.
“Exactly. Since ’09, NDM-1 has become widespread in India and has been detected in more than seventy countries worldwide. By the way, and Dr. Matta may be aware of this, the Indian government’s Health Ministry was furious with the label placed upon this enzyme. Some politicians complained the use of New Delhi was malicious propaganda and blamed United States multinational corporations for engaging in a campaign to malign Indian health programs. None of that mattered, and the abbreviated name, NDM-1, became used throughout the medical community.”
Dr. Matta laughed. “I remember this as well. The Association of Physicians initially registered its complaints until several physicians studied NDM-1 and found the initial findings to be accurate. This enzyme was of Indian origin, but now it resides across the planet.”
“And it resides in your strain of the plague, Mac,” added a solemn Dr. Latham. The room grew quiet as his words soaked in. “Some incredibly talented, yet highly irresponsible scientist, has married Y. pestis to NDM-1. Our findings are conclusive.”
The silence was deafening, and then suddenly, all three doctors began to pepper the good professor with questions as if their collective mindset erupted all at once.
“How did it cross over to the bacterium?”
“What accounts for the incubation period?”
“What antibiotics do we use?”
“Yes, can it be defeated?”
Dr. Latham began to laugh. “Mac, does this bring back memories for you, young lady?”
“Yes, it does. Professor, you used to admonish us to allow you to finish your lecture before Q & A. I take it the rules still apply?”
“Indeed they do. Let me go back. Because NDM-1 changes the characteristics of Y. pestis, it causes the bacteria to produce an enzyme that neutralizes the activity of the antibiotics commonly used to fight pneumonic plague—streptomycin, gentamicin, and even the last resorts, colistin and carbapenems. Carbapenem is mostly used for bacterial infections such as E. coli and K. pneumonia, but they’ve been experimented with on Y. pestis as well.
“Let me mention furt
her, NDM-1 is different from MRSA, associated with staph bacteria. You are aware that MRSA has been in the news lately as the new superbug. MRSA is gram-positive whereas NDM-1 is gram-negative, making it the perfect partner to the gram-negative Y. pestis. The geneticist who created this coupling intertwined the DNA of these two gram-negative strains into a single organism.”
“Professor, how have we missed this with our own analysis at the CDC?” asked Mac.
“Honestly, Mac, and this has nothing to do with you in particular, but the operations of the CDC in general. They are under tremendous pressure from the media, the public, and governmental officials to provide answers in a crisis. This analysis took an extraordinary amount of time under the circumstances.”
“Why?” asked Dr. Matta.
“We study Y. pestis in a general, nutrient-rich media, but its growth rate is slower than most other bacteria. Therefore, its presence may be masked by other organisms that replicate faster. Dr. Gene, as you are aware, the bipolar appearance of the cells following the Wright staining process is not unique to Y. pestis.”
Dr. Gene turned his chair to address Mac and Dr. Latta. “That’s true. Other gram-negative organisms can exhibit the same staining characteristic. As a result, the severity of Y. pestis is often underestimated and misdiagnosed. In this case, the NDM-1 hid within the Y. pestis strain, am I correct, Professor?”
“Head of the class, Dr. Gene,” said the Professor.
“As Mac pointed out earlier, the NDM-1 DNA does two things. First, it increases the pneumonic plague incubation period. From what I gather from Mac’s notes, it appears to have doubled from four days to nearly eight. This creates a deadly and undetectable killer.”
“How do we take it down, Professor?” asked Dr. Gene.
Dr. Latham sighed and sat in the chair in front of his computer so that his face filled the screen of the monitor. “Under ordinary circumstances, the treatment for the pneumonic plague is hit or miss. There is no vaccine. Survival rates are very low, as you know, because patients must be treated in the early hours of infection. With the introduction of NDM-1 to the genetic markers of Y. pestis, you have a disease created by horizontal gene transfer that is incurable. Even if you find a cure, NDM-1 will produce enzymes to fight the antibiotic that seeks to destroy its beloved Y. pestis partner.”
“Are you saying that even if we find a cure, NDM-1 will modify the pneumonic plague to resist it?” asked Mac.
“Yes,” replied Dr. Latham. “This new strain of pneumonic plague will never have an effective, long-lasting cure. Therefore, it will never cease to exist.”
Mac leaned back in her chair and looked around the room. “The only way to stop it is to let it run out of hosts.”
Everyone nodded in agreement. They had a consensus. Class was dismissed.
Chapter 29
Day Thirty-Nine
Newport Lofts
Las Vegas
Hassan smiled as his brothers enjoyed the company of the American women around the rooftop pool at Newport Lofts in downtown Las Vegas. One block from the famed Las Vegas Strip and eye-level to the Stratosphere, the ISIS cell created here in 2008 began buying up the foreclosed condominium units for pennies on the dollar when the real estate market crashed. For over a decade, ISIS jihadists lived and worked in Las Vegas, obtaining positions within the numerous casinos, restaurants, and entertainment venues, which hosted fifty million visitors per year from around the globe.
He wanted to entertain his top lieutenants with the sinful women of Nevada, the best money could buy. For tomorrow, six hundred operatives would walk down Las Vegas Boulevard and throughout the Fremont Street District, randomly spraying their perfume atomizers with a new scent, one that would be legendary.
While the party was progressing, Hassan avoided looking at the nude women splashing in the pool. He loved his wife and family and had every intention of bringing them to America when this was over. He would be hailed as a hero amongst his people. Hassan, unlike the men behind him indulging in the infidels’ guilty pleasures, would not die at the hands of this deadly disease. He planned to survive and raise the flag of Allah over the White House.
But first, there was a disciplinary action to attend to. He walked quietly to the elevator and went down one floor to the spacious penthouse that was reserved for top-ranking ISIS leaders when they traveled to the U.S. under temporary visas.
Years ago, top American attorneys were hired by ISIS, through a surrogate, to research the H-2 temporary visa program. While the U.S. government focused so much attention on border security, the Mexican border was actually the least serious vulnerability in the American immigration system.
For decades dating back to the 1990s, most of the illegal population entering the country crossed the southern border. Today, the vast majority of illegal aliens were in violation of their temporary visas. From 2009 to 2016, the number of nonimmigrant, temporary visas grew by nearly eighty percent. At the same time, overstayers, as they were called by ICE, increased dramatically as the government virtually stopped enforcement of their visa deadlines.
Attorneys for the ISIS surrogates learned to craft language on the applications that insured acceptance into the H-2 program. Jobs were awaiting the ISIS operatives and their leadership team upon getting settled in their new homes. So were professionally created false identifications.
The leadership team was treated like royalty upon their arrival and provided the finest in accommodations. With the eclectic mix of visitors to Las Vegas, a Middle Eastern male hardly stood out in the crowd of millions.
Hassan didn’t know the operative he was about to discipline. For thirty days, ISIS had maintained complete social media silence, which as they suspected, unnerved the watchers, like America’s NSA. The tactic had proven effective as ISIS families moved into hiding and its operatives took up their positions for the Final Jihad.
All of this changed two days ago when one of the Las Vegas faithful published a video to Telegram, a cloud-based instant messaging service used by ISIS around the world to coordinate and synchronize operations. The transmissions could be encrypted and scheduled to destruct at a given time. Its cloud-based technology enabled it to be accessed from multiple devices and platforms. Simply put, Telegram was a terrorist’s dream.
Hassan calmly entered the spacious, two-story living space with windows that rose from floor to ceiling. About a mile away, the roller coaster spun around the top of the Stratosphere in the foreground of the millions of glistening lights twinkling on the casino hotels.
The operative, a young man who had been recruited and radicalized in the local mosque, had been a loyal, capable addition to the caliphate. His mistake, however, could upend the entire operation. Fortunately for the operation, the video was treated as another propaganda tool by a lone wolf, and although local authorities were treating it as a credible threat, their focus was on airport security. Since 9/11, the Americans had zeroed in on airplanes as the primary method of jihad. ISIS, on the other hand, had moved on from this method many years ago.
“You prepared a very nice video, Mohammed,” started Hassan, referring to the name the young man, Devontae Harrison, had adopted when he converted to the Muslim religion. “However, you produced it without the consent or knowledge of any of your superiors.”
The video, featuring the Las Vegas Strip, showcased clips of ISIS utilizing its weaponry in Syria and Iraq, followed by scenes depicting New York’s Times Square and Las Vegas. Using his own voice, young Devontae called for lone-wolf attacks against the infidels and death to America.
“I meant no harm, brother,” begged the young man, who immediately began to shed tears. He’d been held against his will for nearly three hours and had wet himself, fearful of his unknown punishment.
Hassan walked around his chair as his trusted lieutenants, Abbud Omar and Hamza Ahmed, who had traveled with him from the Middle East to Caracas, Venezuela, to Las Vegas, stepped back out of his way. Another operative, a high-ranking member of th
e Las Vegas cell stood to the side as well.
“You call for attacks upon America, Mohammed,” continued Hassan. “Are you prepared to die for Allah? Do you live to die, like your brothers?”
“Yes! Yes! I hope to find the seventy-two virgin maidens that await me. I want to please Allah, and you!”
Hassan nodded and pulled a handgun out of his waistband, causing the tears to roll off the young man’s cheeks as he squirmed in his chair.
“You will die for Allah, but as a hero, not the traitor I see before me. You created this video for your own benefit and attention, not for the Caliphate.”
The young man continued to beg. “I will redeem myself. I will do as you please. I want vindication.”
Hassan motioned for the local operative to join them. He turned his attention to the man and asked, “May I leave this man in your charge and the responsibility to carry out the task that is required?”
“You can, brother,” the man responded.
Hassan rubbed the barrel of the gun against Devontae’s cheek and along the back of his head. He whispered in his ear, “We will give you this opportunity for redemption, but if you fail, you and your family will never find peace.”
“Yes, yes! I will succeed!”
“In two days, there will be a concert at the Thomas & Mack Center. The Americans in attendance are the young—the innocents—the children of the infidels. You will be awaiting them as they come out, full of life and joy after ingesting their hideous Western culture. There you’ll stand, prepared to do Allah’s will. You will redeem yourself, accepting your virgins, and strike fear into the souls of the infidels of this city.”
Hassan walked over to Abbud and whispered in his ear. Devontae would be provided a bomb to detonate, but not one using shrapnel. This bomb would exude a fine mist, enough to spread through the hallways of the arena for an hour to be inhaled by all who passed through it—who would then deliver the bomb to their family, friends, and all whom they came in contact with—until they died of the plague.
