"Well, I could use more to eat, but I feel pretty good besides that," Nathan lied. He had no desire to help this man's experiments.
"Nothing raspy in the lungs? Headaches? How about stomach flu? I can give you medicine, so be honest."
The doctor ran through a checklist, each of which had traumatized Nathan in one way or another over the months in his cold cell, but he denied each one. He didn't believe for a second that he would receive necessary treatment. Maybe some of the others had believed that and told him their symptoms, but their health still hadn't changed. Nathan wouldn't be so fooled. The doctor took careful notes on his chart, then set it aside and took up the first syringe again. He gave Nathan an injection, but it didn't seem to change Nathan's sensation. Then the doctor took up a syringe with an interchangeable vial.
"I just gave you a blood thinner so I can draw some blood. Lots and lots of blood. Hold still."
Filling one vial, the doctor then attached another, and yet another. What he was doing with all of the blood, Nathan could only imagine. Next, the doctor picked up a syringe of clear, green liquid. It seemed to glow. Nathan couldn’t help but fidget.
"What's that?"
With one hand on Nathan's biceps, the doctor hesitated.
"Do you believe it would be easier if you knew?"
"I only want to know what to expect."
The doctor's empty eyes narrowed insightfully.
"You're not like the others, but you will all meet the same fate." He clamped down hard on Nathan's arm and plunged the needle into a ropey vein. "Your destiny is to share what I give you. That is all."
Grinning, the doctor watched as the liquid was forced into Nathan's bloodstream. Nathan's body convulsed involuntarily as the foreign matter invaded his system. The vein in his arm bulged under the pressure of the liquid. It was cold and seemed to claim his circulatory system with a chilling presence. His heart stopped, a valve sloshed through a pulse, then started beating again. The pain from the heart attack caused Nathan to pass out for a few seconds. When he was able to focus his eyes again, the doctor was still grinning, his face two inches from Nathan's face.
"How do you feel?"
Nathan couldn't respond. As the poison swam through his brain, his mind fogged. Something was wrong, but he couldn't struggle. Everything burned like ice. His face felt flushed. He wanted to vomit; something was choking him. Fear swept through him like waves of nausea. Others had suffered horribly for their faith. Whether they lived or died, they lived or died for Christ, leaning on Him through their anguish. He had to do the same!
"Please…," he whimpered involuntarily.
"Yes," the doctor drooled. "Please, you say. You want more, and I have more. After today, you will stop praying to an imaginary God in your cell. You will pray to me for mercy, for my attention, for more…"
With eyes rolling back, Nathan mercifully lost consciousness. When he came to, he found himself alone in the room. His whole body was soaked with sweat, the sheet over him sticking to his body. Even though the room was warm, he couldn't stop shivering. He wondered if the rock in his cell was still warm. All he wanted to do was sleep. A tear rolled from the corner of one eye. There was an ache in the pit of his stomach, something deeper and more severe than hunger, as if he had swallowed a frozen baseball whole.
For the first time in his life, Nathan wondered if allowing himself to die was the answer, to end his suffering. But a voice inside his tormented skull told him this was temporary, to hang on, that this, too, would pass.
"Lord God, help me," Nathan whispered, and drifted off to sleep again.
Sometime later, he woke as a door opened and three in white biohazard suits entered.
"And this is where we treat the disease with, well, disease," a tall man explained, as if guiding a tour. Nathan recognized him from his green eyes to be the man who had stood behind the doctor earlier. "This man on the table now is of particular interest to us. He's a Zionist, a lover of Jews, and therefore chief of the disease."
Through the mask, Nathan could see the tall man had a shaved head, but his eyebrows were red. He had a hard face and perfect teeth, like someone Nathan had seen in a photo once back in the States, a wanted man, perhaps. The tall man stepped away and another bald man looked Nathan over, peering down into his face.
"Even with your suit, Snake, I wouldn't get too close," the tall man warned, but Snake didn't retreat.
"What's his name, Xacsin? If he's so special, shouldn't I know his name?"
"We don't go by names for them, anymore," Xacsin briefed. "These don't deserve names. Numbers only. See? This one has a fresh number." He pointed at Nathan's arm, and Nathan felt the sting of a tattoo for the first time. "But numbers or not, this one's a prize, don't you think, Hannah?"
The third suited stranger stepped closer. Hannah had short blond hair and blue eyes. She sneered down at him.
"Yes, it's Nathan. I didn’t recognize him at first from my sister's photos. But he's the one she shot in Malaysia, all right. Can he even hear us? He seems drugged."
"He's only had his first treatment today," Xacsin said. "His senses are a bit blurred right now, I suspect."
The one called Snake lingered over Nathan, studying his face. Snake's eyes seemed to twitch and narrow, to communicate. Nathan did his best to focus, but his eyes kept wandering.
"How long until you can begin to release the infected ones to the public?"
"Dr. Stashinsky believes he'll be ready after ten more subjects. I work him night and day as it is, but he loves this science. It's not really work to him. More like a hobby in which he takes meticulous notes. A sick man, he is, but one of the best."
"Will Nathan be one of the ones released?" Hannah asked.
"I suspect not," Xacsin said. "He's still in the trial stage, though I'd love nothing more than to send more of these Jew-lovers back to America, especially back to those cursed COIL people. But I doubt he'll live that long. I think of them as petri dishes since all they do is culture organisms. You should really read Dr. Stashinsky's journals, Snake. He makes Dr. Mengele look like an angel of light."
"Yes, I'd be interested in those notes," Snake admitted. "Only wish I'd gotten here sooner. Finally, we're striking at the heart of the disease."
"Come, I'll show you the levels. There are four." Xacsin's tall frame moved to the door on Nathan's right. "Be glad you can't smell the air here, Snake. These animals smell worse than hogs on a farm."
A moment later, Nathan was alone again. The air slowly dried the moisture on his body and the internal discomfort gradually subsided, but the mental disorientation continued. He tried not to think about the disease pumping through his body, catching on his organs and burrowing into his tissues. A petri dish?
Squeezing his eyes shut, tears rolled down his sideburns and into his ears. His mouth was dry and thirst plagued him, but there was no one there to help him. Again, he prayed for God's hand of mercy, then drifted into a fitful sleep.
#######
Blowing a bubble with his gum, Luigi Putelli stood next to a townhouse and peered around the corner at another house. The moon reflected off of his bald head, and his gaunt face showed signs of recovery from his last sacrifice for Corban Dowler. Luigi had taken a number of bullets in the chest trying to protect Corban's wife and daughter, but the family had been taken anyway.
Holding a small scope to one eye, Luigi trained it on the house across the street. Corban had rescued his own family from the grips of an enemy that Luigi hadn't been able to identify. That was six months ago. Luigi didn’t need to know anything about Corban's enemies. All of them were the same. They all wanted to hurt Corban—the protector and guardian of the weak. And since Corban was so cautious and sly, his enemies targeted his family instead.
It was an easy error to make, Luigi reflected. He'd been hired months prior to kill Corban, and to bring COIL to its knees, but Corban had simply turned the tables on Luigi, an expert assassin, and given Luigi a second chance at life. Corban said he h
ad given him his life back because Jesus had given Corban a new life. Luigi didn't understand that fully, but he was learning. And ever since that fateful day in a Lebanese desert, standing above a grave he had dug for himself, Luigi had vowed loyalty to Corban.
Shame seemed to follow Luigi, the shame of his past. He had murdered for money; poisoned and knifed individuals for mass amounts of cash. But for some reason, he felt most ashamed for failing to protect Corban's family. That's why he was back at their side, though unsuspected, once he had found where Corban had relocated his wife and daughter. Luigi wouldn't allow them to be harmed again. And someone like Corban—there were always enemies about. A darkness seemed to follow him, to destroy the goodness that flowed from his courageous soul.
Shoving two more pieces of gum into his mouth, Luigi dropped the wrappers on the ground. Two days ago, he had rented a van and parked it down the street. That was his headquarters for watching the Dowler house. But the night was warm and the neighbors were sleeping, so he was stretching his legs. Besides, it didn’t hurt to get another view of the house. He simply had to stay alert. An enemy could come at any moment. Luigi couldn't be moved from the vow he had made to the man who had given him back his life. And yet, he still didn’t communicate with Corban.
**~~~**
Chapter Ten
Corban crossed his arms as everyone filed into the office area set up in a warehouse in West Berlin. Behind them were a number of vehicles, as well as several cases and crates of gear and equipment for Operation Rahab. All had been prepared by Rupert Mach and the Berlin office, or other COIL operatives. Some of the gear was Russian, some American, some Israeli, but most of it was German-made. There were no chairs in the warehouse, only a metal table with a giant map of Germany, so the field agents stood around their makeshift battle grid.
Opening the silver briefcase he had carried since New York, Corban pulled out a stack of stapled papers divided into eight sections. He passed each section out, the eighth for himself. June Ellerman seemed surprised that he had even prepared one for her.
"This is Operation Rahab," Corban began. "We are in the heart of enemy territory. Do not trust anyone outside of this room." Pausing, he took time to look each member in the face to stress the importance of his order. "Turn to page two. This is the person we know as Xacsin McLeery. As others this past year who have attacked COIL directly, this Xacsin character is serving the one we know as Abaddon. The photo of Xacsin is a little grainy, but you can still tell what he looks like. His hair was red, but he keeps it shaved now. He has green eyes, he's over six feet tall, and weighs over two hundred pounds. This fellow has taken the position as leader of a group of men who believe they represent the Wends. He indoctrinates his followers with a mixture of white supremacist ideals. Xacsin recruits Caucasians from all over the world, but seems to prefer criminals. Turn to page three.
"Here we have Xacsin Castle. A few hundred years old at least; it required renovations in the recent decade. You're looking at a week-old satellite visual. Old documents support the fact that there are numerous levels underground. Among other things, the castle was once a prison that held around two hundred Prussian inmates, mostly political prisoners awaiting execution. Xacsin owns it now. It's his center of operations. I believe he set up the Malaysian ambush from here, and the England kidnapping; maybe even my family's abduction last year.
"Page four gives us more detailed info on the castle's rooms, towers, height of the ramparts, and certain other dimensions as they were years ago after a realtor's survey. Be familiar with this info, but don't take it to the bank because of the possible renovations.
"Look at page five. This man is not sleeping; he's dead. His name was Taath Merari. He was missing for months, but almost two weeks ago, he was found in a village a few miles west of Xacsin Castle. We understand that he escaped the fortress, which has once again become some sort of prison. Taath was found with a piece of cloth. A name was written on that cloth—my name. And the writing was in blood. Nathan's blood."
"Nathan's?" Scooter gasped. "What? He's in the castle? What about Milk? And Toad?"
"Who is Nathan again?" June asked. "And Milk and Toad?"
"I'll brief you more later, June. Just listen for now, all of you." He directed his gaze at Scooter. "Yes, we believe Nathan's in the castle, but he's not well. Blood tests proved positive for a number of airborne agencies—tuberculosis and other things that I can't pronounce. Taath, the one on this slide, was barely twenty-years-old. His insides looked like a grenade blew up in his abdominal cavity, and his heart and lungs were no better. Xacsin plagued him with everything in the book. To list the diseases would only make us sick. He was a walking germ.
"So, why was Xacsin slowly killing young Taath? He wasn't. He wanted him to live—though not forever. Only long enough to infect others. That's what we can assume—that Xacsin is implanting contagions in the people he hates: Jews and Christians.
"It all goes back to Abaddon and the darkness he has served for years, which I've detailed on the final page. Xacsin is perfecting his human virus bombs before he releases them to the public. In the last three years, over three hundred Jews and Christians around Berlin have been abducted. If we were finding bodies, that would be one thing. But we're not finding bodies. Taath was the first. It seems reasonable to assume that Xacsin has test subjects numbering in the dozens if not hundreds. He's holding them until release time, whenever that is."
"Why don't we get the authorities involved if it's such a large operation?" Rupert asked. "I think I know why, but tell us anyway."
"A few reasons. First, there's not any legal evidence yet that Xacsin is responsible for Taath's condition and death. We're a private, foreign organization that has contacts in this country, but no real leverage with the law enforcement. Second, even if we did have evidence, Xacsin has a small but powerful following somewhere near the top that must be protecting him to some degree. Though we're not here to topple a corrupt government, I will be making an effort to isolate Xacsin from his supporters by showing he compromises his own ideals.
"Furthermore, Xacsin has not been caught and charged as a deadly killer already because he serves a supernatural darkness in this world. I remind you all again that this is not only a physical adversary, but also a spiritual one."
"Uh, I don't understand his cause, exactly," June voiced.
"To eradicate Jews and those who stand with them," Corban continued. "That's not all, though. Spreading Christ's message of salvation is something Satan has always tried to stop, so his mission or cause is really two-fold: kill or discredit those who God loves—the Jews—and those who carry God's message—the Christians. It's hatred at the base level. But unlike the one who came before Xacsin—Hitler, in this region, anyway—Xacsin isn't interested in world domination. He wants lives, and he wants the Christians and Jews to be blamed for the disease and illnesses that take those lives. By doing this, Xacsin gains support, as does Abaddon, whoever he is. What we suspect he's doing is so disturbing that the general public wouldn't believe it, so we're keeping it quiet. However, if he truly has a couple hundred in captivity, and many, if not all of them, are as diseased as Taath, we'll have to call in a disease control center to handle it appropriately."
"But what about Toad and Milk?" Bruno asked.
"We know Nathan was alive when he wrote his blood on the cloth. And we know one of the three was killed in England. Whether that was Toad or Milk, we have yet to find out."
"Who do you mean when you say 'we'?" June queried.
"I'm referring loosely to a number of intelligence reports from various sources."
Scooter elbowed Bruno.
"The Boss already has someone on the inside!"
Corban frowned at Scooter, and the operative quickly closed his mouth. June looked from Scooter to Corban.
"Wait, can we read these intel reports? How are you getting your information?"
"No, those reports cannot be shared. Not now, probably not ever. Some of the repor
ts were prepared by deep cover operatives, yes. Most of the papers have been destroyed. If you, June, were to be taken captive, you would surely be tortured to give up your sources. The fewer who know those sources the better. I don't even know them all, and I prefer it that way. Having said that, we know very little about Xacsin Castle, our target. Other thermal imaging views from space show as many as twenty soldiers around the castle, on guard. These aren't lazy guerrilla fighters, either. These are soldiers, all killers, all criminals, and all armed with deadly weapons. Our job for the next couple weeks is to gain intel, run recon, and so on. Don't do anything to draw attention.
"Before we attack, we need to know everything about the castle. Do they have motion sensors in the surrounding forest since they have no discernible perimeter beyond the castle walls? How long are their sentry shifts? Detail their security efforts. Plug into their frequencies if you can. Find their weak spots. If they have prisoners, they must be feeding them something. Find out their food sources, and we can estimate their captive count. That's what the next to the last page details. There's a lot to do before we storm that castle. When you've read and understood your assignments, slide your copy back to me."
"We don't get to keep these?" June frowned.
"No, June. You don't get to keep them."
One at a time, they gave their briefs back to Corban. When he had them stacked in front of him, he opened his silver briefcase again, then opened a false bottom and turned it toward the seven.
"Here are eight cocktails. We are sure to make contact with some of Xacsin's diseases. This vaccine won't guard against them all, but it will shield against some of them. If you feel any questionable symptoms, Rupert will have a doctor on standby at COIL's Berlin headquarters. But this is our H-Q. We're not drawing the local COIL office into Xacsin's line-of-fire, besides Rupert here, though Xacsin seems to already know that we're coming. Probably because he knows me. And we can expect no less attention and danger than what we've already experienced in Paris.
DARK HEARTED (The COIL Series) Page 9
