The Pestilence

by Faisal Ansari

  ***

  THE Scientist had been queueing since well before dawn. The approaches from the Malha Mall to the Teddy Stadium were packed with people patiently waiting for an audience with Samuel. The Healed triage services had been refined since the chaotic morning on campus. The Healed volunteers had begun ordering the line with the most acutely sick towards the front of the queue. The Scientist nursed his severely damaged left hand. It was strapped to his chest with a make-shift sling, the fingers all bloody stumps. The corn syrup and red food colouring mixture stained onto his bandages was sufficiently realistic to earn him a place one third of the way from the front of the line. His only concern was that the sickly sweet corn syrup was beginning to attract the early morning flies.

  ***

  HE smiled at Mariam, eyes, soft, grey and welcoming. She smiled back.

  “Good to see your hair is growing out,” she said.

  Dr Biram laughed and they embraced, this time, in the privacy of the living room.

  ***

  THE routine was similar each morning. Before they faced the day Stefano, Dressler and Samuel all had a desire for a strong black espresso which they would slake with a coffee at Mariam’s. Then into the car for the short drive to the Teddy. Often Dressler drove but today she slid in alongside Samuel. Stefano started the car, adjusted the driver’s seat then the rear-view mirror and in it he flashed Dressler a knowing smile. Dressler turned towards the rear-side window half smiling to herself. Samuel caught the brief exchange. He felt the irresistible chemistry in the car and suddenly missed Mariam.

  “Did you guys have a good evening?” There was mischief in Samuel’s voice.

  “Nothing special,” said Dressler quickly. She waved to the guards as they passed through the campus security gates.

  Samuel stayed quiet resisting the urge to sneak a peek into their memories of the previous night. “Any news about the church?”

  Stefano answered; “Our best current intel suggests they are returning to Jerusalem tomorrow. So after today I recommend we cancel all engagements.”

  “No,” said Samuel firmly.

  Stefano was expecting that answer. “The church leader, Ashen seems to be infatuated with the lady who tried to kill you the other week, White.”

  “Mariko.”

  “Ja,” said Dressler.

  “He has been emailing her, well emailing Dressler actually.”

  Dressler nodded.

  “Where are they? Can’t you track them?”

  “He’s pretty sharp and uses a Virtual Private Network to disguise his IP address. We can’t track his location so by email we are trying to get him to reveal details of the church’s plans. If we get something we can credibly go to the authorities and have them rounded up. If not, then we grab him at his meet with White and quietly put him on a plane back to Japan.”

  “With broken arms and legs, minor damage,” added Dressler.

  “He is much more dangerous than White. Let the authorities deal with them. I would rather you didn’t have to cross paths.”

  Dressler shrugged.

  “There are four of them; I saw it when I met Mariko.”

  “Then the stupid names make sense,” said Dressler. “We know White and Ashen; my guess the other two call themselves Red and Black.

  “Huh?”

  “The colour of the steeds of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”

  ***

  THE Teddy Stadium had a seating capacity of 34,000 people. The Healed had filtered the most serious cases onto the turf of the stadium. That increased the capacity by another 15,000 with four times that number of people waiting outside. The world it seemed was travelling to Jerusalem. The Scientist did the math, only a fraction waiting would be seen. Assuming Samuel healed six people a minute that was only 360 people an hour, 4,320 over a twelve-hour day. It would take Samuel three days just to clear the pitch. The people in the stands had an impossibly long wait and that meant if the Scientist wanted an audience with Samuel he would need to be on the pitch to stand any chance. Unfortunately, his fake injuries had relegated him to the East Stand of the Teddy.

  The Healed were forming a cordon around the touchline closest to the entrance to the new South Stand. The stand entrance led directly onto the perimeter road and was wide enough for the heavy agricultural equipment to access the turf. The Scientist guessed that was where Samuel would be driven into the stadium. He didn’t hesitate and quietly left his seat to make his way down to the pitch. He could hear a faint rumble in the distance which quickly turned into a full throated roar. Samuel Srour was approaching.

  ***

  “ESPRESSO no sugar, I remember,” Biram said handing Mariam her cup.

  Mariam sipped the coffee and placed the cup on the table in front of her.

  “I am about two thirds of the way through the paper. It is developing into a fine piece of work; there are obviously areas where we can work together to show—”

  “Shimon,” she said gently. “I didn’t come here to talk about work. I came here to find out how you are holding up. Are you seeing your children?”

  His face fell. “At weekends only. I’m fine; my current abode obviously leaves much to be desired.” He gestured around to the cramped and unloved bungalow. “Things weren’t working anyway; what happened, with the news, it just speeded things up.”

  “We could go to her together and tell her the truth about the video.”

  He looked crestfallen and shook his head. “I don’t want to. This life in Israel wasn’t the life for her. She never wanted to come here and I knew that but kept pushing for it. Pushed for the posting at the university, pushed to come and live here. Aliyah was always my dream. It was never hers.”

  “Yes I know, you’ve mentioned it before but why then did you make her come?”

  “The Aliyah is a long standing tradition amongst my people and I was utterly drawn to it. To return to the Promised Land is the fulfilment of God’s biblical promise to the descendants of the Hebrew patriarchs. We came as a family three years ago, but we arrived right in the middle of a war. Our right to return here is enshrined in Israeli law, but life was a struggle and still is. My wife hated that I took her away from her family and her home. I dropped her and our children into a war zone, surrounded by fighting and death. Deep down, she didn’t believe in coming to this disputed land but the more I threw myself into this life, the more she withdrew. She despises me for it now. The video was just an excuse. Peace makes no difference to her; she wants to return home and will take my children with her.”

  “Oh, Shimon I am so sorry.” Empathy and compassion weighed heavily in Mariam’s voice. She reached past her coffee cup and placed her hand on top of his. He turned his palm to the ceiling and interlocked his fingers with hers.

  ***

  SAMUEL was greeted like a rock star. The noise in the stadium that met his arrival was profound. The Scientist noted that almost as many people were praying as were cheering. The clamour somehow doubled as Samuel stepped out of the dark blue sedan at the foot of the new South Stand. Samuel was flanked by Stefano and Dressler. A combination of the other investigators and the Healed lined a route across the pitch to the North Stand at far end of the stadium. The Scientist thought that Samuel made that walk with great reservation and humility, perhaps touched by a sense of embarrassment. The Scientist travelled parallel to the security cordon, weaving through the surging crowd, trying to get ahead of the slow moving procession. It was clear that Samuel was going to work from north to south as the most acute patients, many on stretchers or trolleys were clustered under the North Stand. With the security team focused on Samuel, the Scientist was able to slot in amongst the most critical. All he had to do now was wait.

  Samuel healed far quicker than the Scientist was expecting. He didn’t stop to take a diagnosis or converse with his patients. Moving swiftly he simply touched one patient’s face after another in rapid succession. Sort of a miracle production line, thought the Scientist. He realised that he ha
d grossly underestimated the number of people Samuel could heal. Samuel was whirring along at almost one person every other second. Thirty per minute, 1,800 in an hour; 21,600 people would be healed today.

  Samuel now was only a few metres away. The Scientist stepped out of the line.

  “Samuel, may I have a word?”

  Instantly, Dressler stood between the Scientist and Samuel, the other Decapolis investigators quickly completed the human shield.

  “You’re not sick,” said Samuel.

  The Scientist smiled gesturing to his bandages. “A quite brilliant ruse.”

  Dressler grimaced.

  “It’s okay, Dress, I see no ill intent.” Samuel stepped from behind his protectors. “We can talk but you are going to have to keep up. No time to waste.” Samuel continued along the line healing as he went. The Scientist followed, unwrapping his arm from the sling and discarding the soiled bandages to the hungry flies.

  “Samuel, I ask you to consider what I’m about to say with an open mind.”

  Samuel looked back over his shoulder and nodded, his hands healing a young woman.

  “What you are doing here by all means is completely admirable, but you are not aiding these people; you are simply prolonging life and by doing so upsetting nature’s balance.”

  “What balance is that?”

  “Forty per cent of the Earth’s land mass is given over to farming food crops or for feed and grazing for livestock. If we add other human infrastructure, we are approaching land utilisation in the high eighties. Without modern synthetic fertilisers and industrial farming, this planet could never have supported the numbers of people living today.”

  “Admittedly, the numbers you are healing are not insubstantial but weighed against the total population they are statistically insignificant. However, I will wager that the energy you are transferring could be used by others to heal. Have you considered that possibility?”

  Samuel thought for a second, thinking back to Dina, thinking back to his brother and Mariam’s father; the huge amounts of energy they had all absorbed. “I don’t know; potentially.”

  “Then, as I suspected, we have an extraordinarily dangerous issue. Recklessly increasing the longevity of the population without increasing resources sustainably is a path to global catastrophe. We simply don’t have infinite resources to support an infinite population.”

  “I know, but I can’t ignore these people. I won’t ignore the sick and the dying.”

  “Then your followers are simply replacing one flawed system with another.”

  Samuel smiled. “That’s not my aim. I’m just healing. But I suspect you haven’t tricked your way in here to give me a lesson on political and population demographics.”

  “A correct supposition; very astute of you. I came to tell you that Hans, bubby, I’m your white knight.”

  Samuel stopped healing, vaguely remembering the cheesy line from an old film and turned to address the Scientist. As he did so, he noticed that Dressler was shielding her eyes, looking up above the South Stand. Samuel followed the line of Dressler’s scrutiny. He wasn’t entirely certain, but there was definitely something hovering in the sky above the distant end of the stadium.

  ***

  THERE was a pounding on the door followed by a long insistent blast from the doorbell. Dr Biram was minded to ignore it, and he did, but the bell rang persistently followed by another round of aggressive hammering. He tucked in his shirt before answering.

  “Mariam Fara, I must speak to Mariam Fara now.” The man practically shouted in Dr Biram’s face.

  “Who are you?”

  “Her taxi driver from his morning. She is still here? Yes? I must speak to her now. Now.” If Dr Biram hadn’t been standing at the door the man would have pushed past.

  Mariam came to the door. She swept back her curls and tied up her hair as the man’s words spilled out over his exhaustion. Over his shoulder Mariam could see his taxi up on the curb, engine running and driver-side door still open. It was obvious that he had sprinted from his cab to the front door. “Attack.” He fought for the breath to finish his sentence. “There’s been an attack at the Teddy.”

  Mariam scrabbled to slip her shoes onto her naked feet. It was then she felt a charged energy in the atmosphere. She looked up at the driver. His thin, unkempt hair had begun to stand on end. Mariam felt her own hair rising. She looked at Shimon and almost in slow motion he was staring at the erect hair on the back of his hands, his face a mask of confusion. An enormous crack rendered the sky and lightning arced across the heavens. Mariam ran out onto the lawn. A continuous stream of electricity was rolling in from the west and burned over the city in the direction of the Teddy Stadium. Mariam was overcome by an incomprehensible feeling of dread.

  ***

  STEFANO had joined Dressler squinting up at the morning sky, where now there were two objects hovering in the air ten metres above the towering South Stand.

  “Drones. Big ones. Eight rotors each. Looks like a camera slung underneath. Perhaps one of the news crews?” said Stefano.

  Dressler shook her head. “Why two?”

  More and more people in the stadium had noticed the CineStars and were craning their necks to view the floating oddities. As interest in the CineStars rose the general noise level in the stadium fell. The sound of the sixteen rotors, akin to a swarm of angry bees could now be heard. The cameras in the two CineStars roved left and right relaying the images back to Ashen and Black. They had set up in the car park over the pedestrian footbridge linking the stadium to the Malha Mall. Three hours before the mall opened, the car parks were wide, empty expanses, a perfect base from which to set up and launch the attack.

  “Not good,” said Dressler.

  “I know. It looks wrong. Three of them now.”

  The first rotor copter dropped low over the seats of the South Stand and took up a hover five metres above the goal posts. Dressler grabbed Samuel’s sleeve and pulled him down forcing him to kneel behind her. Two of the Healed volunteers broke off from tending the sick and completed the shield, instantly Samuel disappeared into a 49,000-strong crowd. The copter hovering above the South Stand goal suddenly changed direction and swept along the pitch. Those underneath raising their eyes as it flew overhead. At the half-way line, the copter started gaining altitude darting above the goal-mouth and perching above the North Stand behind them.

  Black had packed the PETN, detonator and cord into an aluminium tray which was soldered to the struts above the video camera. The carbon fibre and aluminium frame of the multi-rotor copter would in itself provide shrapnel to increase the killing radius of the two kilograms of PETN but for completeness Ashen had insisted on sprinkling the top of each tray with four inch hardware nails. Fastened to the lid of the nail bomb was a remote detonator in the shape of a pay as you go cell phone.

  Stefano felt a swell of pride as Dressler watchfully protected Samuel and the semblance of an idea began to form. He removed his suit jacket, discarded his tie and holster and tucked his Beretta into his trousers. As he did so the second CineStar descended majestically from the South Stand. It repeated the same manoeuvre as the first but this time flew from the halfway line to hover above the East Stand. The three copters were now high above the North, South and East Stands gently panning ominously left to right. Speaking into the microphone on his wrist Stefano radioed for four of his investigators to converge on his position. His men formed a diamond around him and Stefano placed his hand on the shoulder of the investigator at the head of the diamond.

  “Go,” Stefano shouted. The investigators moved for the car, straight down the length of the pitch. They moved in formation, Stefano at the centre; his head down, relying on his arm on the investigator’s shoulder to guide him. As they advanced, his team carved people out of their way. The ripple of their urgent progress spread through the crowd and the eyes of the watching sentinels tracked their progress. Five-hundred-metres away in an empty car park Ashen watched as the agents hustled their VI
P towards their getaway. He smiled; the VIP was too big to be the False Messiah, nevertheless he changed controllers to the copter marked “South” and removed the machine from its automatic hover. He rotated the CineStar centring the video screen on the dark blue getaway car and dropped altitude rapidly. He hovered five metres above the car, the camera now fixed on the approaching security team. Ashen waited until the investigators were a few metres away then brought the CineStar gently down to land on the roof of the car. He picked up a cell phone; from the phone book selected the number stored as “South” and pressed call.

  Stefano and his escort were about three metres from the car when the drone dropped out of the air and Ashen detonated the PETN. The blast stripped Stefano’s shirt from his body and he felt as if he was being lifted up into the heavens.

  A split second of absolute silence followed the crump of the explosion. Then screaming started. Limbs and body parts littered the penalty area and the stand behind the goal. Shrapnel and four inch nails had penetrated deep into the crowded stadium almost to the halfway line. The blue sedan was a burning carcass and the South Stand echoed with the cries of the fallen and the smell of charred flesh.

  Few ran, but the majority of the crowd watched in a bemused reverie at the carnage occurring around them, struggling to process the horror unfolding. Dressler, however, was moving. She was moving fast. She barked orders into her comms link to the remaining investigators warning them to stay away from her and Samuel. She didn’t want suited agents running to her position directing the next strike down upon them.

  Slowly people were beginning to awaken from their stupor. Many of the Healed rushed to tend the injured, but the smell of fear and death began the stampede for the exits.

  The sentinels still flying above the North and East Stands continued their slow, deliberate pan of the stadium. The South Stand exit onto the road was blocked by the flaming wreckage of the car so Dressler grabbed Samuel and hurried west. Keeping him close, keeping him safe. Behind them, Ashen floated down the CineStar hovering atop the North Stand. Ashen manoeuvred the north copter into the goal-mouth, amongst the beds and wheelchairs of the acutely sick, where Samuel had stood only moments before. Death hung five metres above the turf then with devastating force he announced himself.