Bioterror! (an Ell Donsaii story #14)

by Laurence Dahners

  Bioterror!

  An Ell Donsaii story # 14

  By

  Laurence E Dahners

  Copyright 2017 Laurence E Dahners

  Kindle Edition

  Author’s Note

  Though this book can “stand alone” it will be much easier to understand if read as part of the series including

  “Quicker (an Ell Donsaii story)”

  “Smarter (an Ell Donsaii story #2)”

  “Lieutenant (an Ell Donsaii story #3)”

  “Rocket (an Ell Donsaii story #4)”

  “Comet! (an Ell Donsaii story #5)”

  “Tau Ceti (an Ell Donsaii story #6)”

  “Habitats (an Ell Donsaii story #7)”

  “Allotropes (an Ell Donsaii story #8)”

  “Defiant (an Ell Donsaii story #9)”

  “Wanted (an Ell Donsaii story #10)”

  “Rescue (an Ell Donsaii story #11)”

  “Impact (an Ell Donsaii story #12)” and

  “DNA (an Ell Donsaii story #13)

  I have minimized repetition of explanations that would be redundant to the earlier books in order to provide a better reading experience for those of you who are reading the series.

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.

  Table of Contents

  Preprologue

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Epilogue

  Author’s Afterword

  Preprologue

  “Hey Stupid. What happened to your neck?”

  Carley realized her hair must have fallen aside to expose the bruise on her neck. A year ahead of her in school, Johnny lived to bully kids younger and smaller than himself. When he’d gotten into the seat behind her she’d felt dismay. Trying to ignore him, Carley lifted a hand and combed fingers through her lank brown hair in an attempt to straighten it over the dark purple spot.

  With dismay, she felt her hair being pulled aside as Johnny moved it so he could see her neck. Carley couldn’t keep from cringing aside a little. The kid said, “Gross. Don’t you ever wash your hair?”

  Carley felt like she was dying inside. She couldn’t think how to respond, but her shoulders turtled up of their own accord to protect her neck.

  Johnny said, “Ooh, gross. That’s a hickey, isn’t it?”

  Carley didn’t know what a hickey was, but from the sound of Johnny’s voice it seemed like something even worse than a bruise. She slid lower in her seat, willing herself to disappear.

  Refusing to let it drop, Johnny loudly asked, “Is it a hickey? You letting guys suck on your neck Carley?”

  Suck on my neck? Carley thought in horror. Why would anyone do that?! She slid even lower in the seat, willing Johnny to climb back into whatever hole he crawled out of every morning.

  Sounding like a klaxon to her ears, Johnny said, “I’m talkin’ to you Carley!” She realized he’d never let it drop.

  Suddenly Carley’s younger brother Eli stood up in the seat beside her.

  Eli turned.

  Carley suddenly realized that things actually could get worse than being humiliated by Johnny Folsom. “No Eli!” she hissed, reaching toward her brother.

  Too late. Eli’d already punched out with all the force he had.

  Carley surged up out of her seat, ready to do what she could to protect her small brother from the much bigger Johnny.

  To Carley’s astonishment Johnny had his hand up covering his nose. His eyes looked startled for a moment, then they welled with tears. A moment later he bent forward and buried his sobbing face between his knees.

  As the years passed, Carley never quite knew what to make of the events of that day. Johnny never again said anything directly to her, which seemed like a plus. But she could tell he said things about her to others, spreading ugly rumors which may’ve been more devastating than face to face taunts.

  Nonetheless, her younger brother had defended her and she loved him for it…

  ***

  Carley woke to the sound of her mother screaming.

  Trembling, she rolled out of bed. This wasn’t the first time her mother had screamed in the night, but somehow… somehow this time her mother’s cries seemed even more terrified than usual.

  Carley found herself at the top of the stairs, heart thumping, knees shaking. She could barely understand her mother’s screams but thought they were begging the house AI (Artificial Intelligence) to call 911.

  Carley leaned down to peer out into the kitchen from the stairs. Carley’s dad sat astride her mother’s torso, holding her mother’s AI headband out of reach. Mom’s face was bloody. Her hair was a mess suggesting that Dad had been manhandling her by a grip in her hair like he’d done before.

  Like he did to Carley sometimes.

  Carley’s dad laughed. In a slurred tone he said, “You stupid bitch. Think I’m dumb enough that I’d leave the house AI powered up when I came in to have this little talk with you?”

  He pulled his fist back.

  Carley started running down the stairs—to do she knew not what.

  Her dad’s hand flashed forward and her mother’s head flopped to one side. It lay unnaturally still. He pulled back his other hand.

  Carley turned to the closet where her dad kept his baseball bat.

  ***

  Carley huddled on the stairs, her arms around a trembling Eli. She heard the woman say she was from Child Protective Services. The woman was talking quietly to a policeman and to someone who seemed to be the policeman’s boss. She thought they were talking quietly so Carley wouldn’t be able to hear them but she still understood them. The woman asked, “Is she dangerous?”

  The man who wasn’t in uniform shrugged, “Pretty sure she’s the one that bashed the guy’s head in with the baseball bat. I guess that makes her dangerous, but it seems like she had just cause to do it.”

  “The man was beating the woman?”

  Another nod, “Bruises and tooth marks on his knuckles. Crushed facial bones and broken jaw on the woman. Probably a broken neck’s what killed her.” His eyes turned to Carley’s mother whose head still lay twisted unnaturally beneath the sheet. Carley still felt her mom’s unseeing stare. In a sad tone, the man continued, “Beat her mother to death before the girl bashed in his skull.”

  “Is the man related?”

  “She says he’s her dad.”

  “Any other relatives?”

  “The girl says the only relatives she’s ever known are her brother, mom and dad. Just the brother now I guess. Hopefully you can find someone else. Gotta hope that somewhere there’s someone decent in the family.”

  The woman sighed and glanced at Carley. She said thanks to the policemen and started Carley’s direction. “Hi Carley,” she said in a friendly tone, “I’m Ariel…”

  ***

  Carley sat at a table in the kitchen while Ariel talked to the couple in the living room. They were speaking quietly. Like that terrible night, they apparently thought Carley wouldn’t be able to hear what they said. This seemed to happen to Carley a lot and she often wondered whether people commonly misjudged each other’s hearing, or whether perhaps she could actually hear better than most people. In any case, she was able to hear and understand almost everything they said. The woman had her eyes on Carley, but turned them to Ariel. “She seems very sweet. Has she been a problem?”

  Ariel shook her head, “No. She’s been very polite to a
dults and caring toward other children.”

  “How’s she doing in school?”

  “Her teachers say she does well. They think she’s smart enough to do far better. Unfortunately, it seems that kids at her previous school picked on her. She’s been clothed shabbily and wasn’t allowed to bathe very often… that probably had something to do with it.”

  “Oh!” the woman said with a distressed glance at Carley, covering her mouth with her hand. “That’s so sad.” After a moment her eyes turned back to Ariel. “What’s going to happen to her brother? Will he come here later?”

  Ariel looked at Carley as she said, “I hope so. Carley hasn’t seen her brother for weeks and she’s been pretty despondent about it. The judge though… He’s worried about keeping them together. Sibling rivalry and fights occur in even the most loving of circumstances and after what happened to Carley’s dad, he… he thinks she might be a danger to him.”

  The man, who hadn’t been saying anything so far, glanced over at Carley then turned his eyes back to Ariel. “She killed her own father?!”

  Ariel got a pinched look on her face, “While he was killing her mother, yes.”

  “How?! For God’s sake, the girl’s a toothpick!”

  Ariel looked at him for a long moment as if considering whether to tell him or not. Finally, she said, “She hit him on the back of the head with a baseball bat while he was kneeling over her mother and beating the poor woman to death.”

  There was a long silence. Eventually the man said, “She doesn’t have to go to prison for that?”

  Ariel slowly shook her head, “It’s called justifiable homicide…”

  ***

  Mrs. Heune and the lady from the principal’s office walked Carley to her new class. Carley glanced over at her, thinking that she liked Mrs. Heune. Carley wasn’t sure about Mr. Heune yet. She thought he still worried about the fact that Carley’d killed her own father and wondered if he might be next. But Mrs. Heune, a little overweight and almost always pleasantly smiling, she seemed to like Carley. After spending her life being despised by her drunken father and distressed by her mother’s moods, Carley found Mrs. Heune pretty easy to tolerate.

  In fact, Carley’d characterize her life as the best it’d ever been… if the judge would just let Eli join her at the Heune’s. She wished she knew where her brother was and how he was doing.

  She wanted to see him again.

  Very badly.

  But, from what she’d heard the adults say when they thought she couldn’t hear, the biggest reason she and Eli weren’t together was the persistent fear that Carley might hurt him like she’d hurt her father. They didn’t understand how much Carley loved her brother, or how much she’d hated her dad. Carley worked every day to be a perfect girl. The kind of girl that they’d believe would never hurt her brother.

  Maybe they’d allow a model child to form a family with her brother.

  Mrs. Heune had gone to some lengths to get Carley some clothes that might help her fit in. They’d sat outside Carley’s new school last week and watched the other kids to see what they were wearing. Mrs. Heune had listened to Carley’s requests and had even taken her to a thrift shop so they could get her some clothes that didn’t look brand-new. New clothes were nice, but Carley thought that nothing but new clothes would seem weird. Instead of being embarrassed about her clothes like Carley’d always been before, today Carley felt comfortable in new jeans and an old but clean knit shirt.

  And she was clean! At the Heunes’ Carley got to take a shower every day. Her hair glistened and bounced with a reddish tint Ms. Heune called auburn.

  The lady from the office knocked on the classroom door and Carley felt her heart beat a little faster. A woman opened the door and gave her a bright smile. She said, “Hello, you must be Carley Bolin?”

  Carley nodded and the teacher held the door wide. She said, “Come on in, we’ve saved a seat just for you.”

  Once Carley sat down, the teacher told the other kids Carley’s name and asked her classmates to help her catch up with her schoolwork. The girl seated next to Carley whispered, “I can help. I’m Mazie Carter, maybe we can be friends?”

  As a warm feeling flowed over her, Carley nodded again.

  ***

  Shadan Farsq walked down the street carrying a reusable grocery bag, one apparently full of groceries. On top was a head of romaine lettuce and a bunch of bananas. If someone had lifted those out, they’d have seen a carton of milk. The fact that the milk had been dumped out and several pounds of smokeless rifle cartridge powder put in its place wouldn’t have been evident. Surrounding the carton of milk was a bag of marbles and dark glass beer bottles, each of which had had their beer poured out and replaced with kerosene. Someone would’ve had to lift out the wine bottle to realize it trailed wires into the milk carton and had a switch on its side to start its five minute timer.

  Shadan walked up to the back of the crowd that was protesting a recent terrorist attack. He set his grocery bag down on top of a concrete planter just inside the edge of the crowd, surreptitiously flipping the switch on the timer.

  He raised his hands into the air and took up the crowd’s chant, working his way through the press of bodies toward the other side. By the time the five minutes was up he had hundreds of bodies between himself and the bomb.

  He stopped and turned his head toward the bomb so the cameras on his AI headband would capture the explosion.

  Of course, the microphones would also pick up the sweet sound of the screams.

  Islam Akbar! he chanted to himself.

  ***

  Carley Heune’s knee jittered up and down as she sat on the stage and looked out over all the faces in the auditorium. Her mom, Martha Heune, the woman who’d served as her foster mother for two years and then adopted Carley, smiled happily up at her. Sitting next to her mom, Larry Heune—who she still tended to think of as Mr. Heune even though he’d adopted her as well—gave her a smile and a little wave. Over the years she’d learned to like him and even call him “Dad,” but she mostly did so because her mom asked her to.

  Carley’s eyes drifted over the mass of other students. Mazie Carter’s curly bright-red hair made her easy to pick out. Mazie’d been her friend from that day so many years ago when Carley’d first arrived at the school. Over the years Mazie’d become much more than a friend. At college next year they were going to be roommates.

  Mr. Bradshaw leaned closer to the mic. “And now a few words from our valedictorian.” Bradshaw turned to give Carley an admiring look then turned back to his audience. “Many of you know that Carley’s life was not always a bed of roses. Valedictorian by a substantial margin, she’s certainly blossomed here at Carpenter High School. She’s also been a member of the student council and a star on the softball team. She’s won a full ride Morehead scholarship and we expect her to do Carpenter proud at the University next year.” He turned and opened his hand toward her, “Carley?”

  ***

  Adin Farsq stared sightlessly out over the cold gray sea, trying to remember the details of his son Shadan’s life. Though he did this often, to his horror those details just kept fading.

  Though his name, Shadan, meant happy, the boy’d seldom been so. Small and slender, he’d been bullied in school. Devout in his Islamic faith, he’d been taunted for practicing it. A period of time during which he’d tried to practice his daily prayers in the school room had cemented his status as an object of the Christian boys’ scorn and physical assaults. The girls weren’t any better Apparently they’d ignored him as if he weren’t there, or worse, moved to avoid being near him. Though Shadan had started out as a friendly child, he’d slowly withdrawn into his shell as repeated adolescent emotional traumas gradually destroyed his spirit.

  When Adin’s introverted child reached manhood and abruptly declared himself to be one of God’s warriors, Adin had been as surprised as anyone else. The quiet son, now suddenly and frighteningly intense. The son who’d once asked Adin why he beli
eved, now become the son so fierce in his own faith that Adin was ashamed to express his own doubts.

  Adin had thought his son was merely strong in his faith. One so devoted that he refused to stray from the dictates in any way. Someone who might occasionally embarrass Adin for his own weaknesses. Someone who’d chastise others when they strayed from the path.

  Adin’d had no idea that his son intended to take up arms against the nonbelievers.

  Then Homeland Security came to Adin’s door.

  At first Adin thought they’d made a mistake. That his son couldn’t have been involved in the ways that they claimed he’d been.

  He couldn’t have been planting the bombs Adin had read about with horror, not knowing his own son’d been the one building and setting them.

  But the agents forced the Farsq family’s computers to give up their secrets. An agent showed Adin that his son had visited Islam Akbar’s websites. A hyper violent Islamic splinter group, Islam Akbar advocated terrorism as the solution to almost every problem. Almost every other group in Islam had repudiated and distanced itself from the crazies that populated Islam Akbar.

  They were hated everywhere, by everyone. They were despicable human beings.

  Shadan had spent a great deal of time on websites that advocated horrifically violent holy war. Men from Homeland Security showed Adin the files his son had downloaded. Files describing methods for bomb building amongst what seemed like a thousand other heinous means of attack.

  Homeland Security showed Adin communications between his son and others. Men who’d exhorted his son to consider more and more violent attacks on those who believed in false gods. They wanted him to join the holy war against the idolaters who’d been at war with the true believers for centuries. At first Adin had hated those who’d led his son onward, but as he read through some of the communications he came to realize that his son had been goading the others as much, if not more, than they had pressed him.