Samarra Russell was rushing, she was always rushing, into the Dunwoody Starbucks, her regular morning routine. Dressed in black jeans and a conservative, pink tank-top, at least as conservative as a tank-top can be and still be a tank-top, she grabbed the Emory Times from the Starbucks news rack, a new and widely circulated newspaper about the goings-on at the CDC and Emory University. Spotting Jeff Ross by the front window, Jeff who was normally reading one of the three newspapers that he read daily, she noted that he was staring out the window in somewhat of a daze.
“Am I interrupting anything?” she asked as she sat down at Jeff’s small round table that was barely adequate for one small person; but Samarra was a small person, about five-foot one and a size two, max.
“Hey Samarra! No, not at all.” He slid the extra chair from beneath the table. “Now my day is off to a great start!”
He was glad Samarra interrupted his thoughts about the disaster the week before, the pretty, young Muslim student who he could not save, in spite of all the medical training he received in the Navy as a member of a SEAL team. She was dead when he lifted her from the floor, killed by a four-inch hailstone that plummeted from the darkness of the sky last week and through the shattered windows of the Georgia State Astronomy Lab.
Jeff had great respect for Samarra Aziz Russell, a Pakistani Jew with dual citizenship in Pakistan and the United States, which was somewhat of an anomaly. There weren’t many Jews living in Pakistan now, probably less than two hundred or so.
When Israel became a country-of-its-own again, in nineteen forty-eight, nearly two thousand years after the Romans burned Jerusalem to the ground and shipped all the Jews out to faraway lands, Israel reacquired some, but not all, of her original borders from the time of King David’s and Solomon’s kingdom.
The two thousand Jews in 1948 Pakistan came under constant, violent attacks; and the few synagogues that remained were burned. Most Jews left Pakistan, migrating to Israel, the United States and England.
“So how are things at the CDC? No new plagues to worry about, I hope?” Jeff asked, admiring as he always did, Samarra’s unusual beauty, the olive skin of a Semite and the blackest hair a woman could have.
“Nope, nothing to worry about, other than swine flu, Ebola, AIDS, MRSA, Hepatitis C, the missing smallpox cultures. Should I go on?”
Samarra Russell was Director of Research of Communicable Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, located just up the street from Emory University Hospital and Research Center. She was a scholar of exotic diseases from the most remote parts of the planet. With double PhD’s in biochemistry and cellular microbiology, Samarra had been with the CDC for ten years. She was blessed, not only with her beauty, a head-turner to say the least, but also with her substantial brain tissue and one hundred forty IQ. She and Jeff became friends after meeting at a Mensa function in Los Angeles seven years earlier.
Jeff controlled his physical admiration for Samarra, placing it in the purely platonic file of his brain. Not long after meeting her in Los Angeles, he met her husband, who he grew to like tremendously.
Samarra was happily married to Jack Russell, not the terrier but a United States Senator from Cumming, Georgia. Jack was on the Military Finance Committee and was keenly interested in the application of nanotechnology in the military spying environment. The United States and Israel had jointly developed nanotech spybots, flying cameras the size of the ordinary housefly and would soon have spybots the weight and size of an anopheles mosquito, nearly invisible.
At 31, Samarra was twenty-three years younger than Jack. It was his second marriage, and everyone knew he had his “arm charm,” that she married him for his money. They had been wrong however, as she refused to give up her career. She loved working with communicable diseases. In a way, she and Jack both loved working with small, microscopic bugs, just one of their many commonalities.
“Hadn’t heard about any missing smallpox cultures.” Jeff knew that couldn’t be good. “From the CDC?”
“No, thankfully, though in the whole scheme of things it doesn’t really matter. It’s missing from USAMRIID at Ft. Detrick, Maryland; so it’s been hush-hush. You did not hear this from me.” She smiled, but it was a concerned smile.
Jeff knew a little about the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), the only U.S. Department of Defense laboratory equipped to study extremely hazardous viruses at biosafety level 4. Staffed by military and civilian researchers, groundbreaking knowledge of smallpox and anthrax viruses, primarily because of military weapon applications, led to unprecedented security after the anthrax attacks following 9/11.
“How in the world could someone steal smallpox from USAMRIID?” Jeff asked the question in disbelief, because of the security.
“Not sure, but it happened. The amount that is missing is undisclosed, but rumor has it….” her voice trailing off to a whisper.
“Let me explain the lethality of smallpox, are you interested?”
Jeff shook his head to the affirmative.
“Smallpox emerged in the human population, possibly as early as 10,000 B.C. and killed about 450,000 Europeans a year in the latter part of the eighteenth century. Smallpox was responsible for a third of all blindness at that time, caused by corneal ulceration; and eighty percent of infected children died a hideous death.
“During the twentieth century, smallpox is credited with three hundred million deaths, or more, and in the 1950s there were an estimated fifty million cases a year.
“A vaccine was developed by Dr. Edward Jenner in 1796 after he observed that milkmaids who acquired the cowpox virus did not get smallpox. A world-wide vaccination campaign was launched, and smallpox became the first and only human infectious disease to be completely eradicated. At least it was completely eradicated until recently when several cases were reported in Africa and India.
“Because of the extreme pain and suffering caused by the smallpox virus, and the boil-like pustules that form on the face and in the mouth, many immunologists believe this was the disease that befell Job.”
“Who?” Jeff didn’t know Job.
“Job! You know, as in the Book of Job in the Old Testament? Helloooo, anybody home?” Samarra knew that Jeff, a member of the high-IQ Mensa organization, had to know about the Book of Job.
“You know, and I guess I’m wondering why sometimes, I’ve never read the Old Testament, or the New Testament for that matter, at least all of it, or even most of it.”
They had never really discussed religion, but Samarra was surprised.
“Well Mr. Mensa, you should read it! It will add to your literary knowledge and better your life. I have to go, or I’m going to be late for my staff meeting.”
And as quickly as she appeared, Samarra kissed Jeff on the cheek and rushed out the door. Jeff returned to the paper he had been reading before losing his thoughts to the young Muslim girl he couldn’t save.
Korengal Valley is located along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, about 120 miles east of Kabul and 80 miles northwest of Peshawar, Pakistan. It was known as the Valley of Death for the soldiers of the former Soviet Union.
In the deeply wooded mountains skirting the valley, the terrain was prime for both the Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters, providing easy access for the terrorists to freely move in-and-out of Pakistan as well as ideal ambush-friendly terrain. It was strongly rumored, and believed, that Osama bin Laden and his crew, or what was left of it after President George Bush led the war against them, resided somewhere in the valley.
Muhammed Khalid, who only used his first name, as did most of the men in his tribe, and his sister, Aludra, lived together in temporary shelter, as all shelter for the Taliban and al-Qaeda had become temporary, moving from place-to-place the norm.
“Are the blessed martyrs ready?” Muhammed directed his question to Mehdi, his Chief of Security and Jihad Planner.
They were taking a chance talking by satellite phone, but in a few days it wouldn’t really matter anyway. The plan would be active. The beast would be unleashed, Insha’Allah, God willing. “They are, may Allah bless and protect them. Our mission will be a complete success, if it is the will of Allah,” Mehdi answered.
Mehdi knew it was the will of Allah, believing that the God of Abraham had changed His mind and was a militant fanatic who really hated the Jews and Christians, those described in the Quran as the People of the Book. He knew that Allah at one time had loved the Jews, they were his Chosen People, and even the Christians. But that was then, and this is now. That was before the Jews, and the Christians with their three-gods-in-one, went astray. Jesus was after all, a Muslim.
Now the Muslims were the Chosen, the rightful owners of the covenant between Allah and his people; because they were the direct descendants of Abraham’s first born, Ishmael, the son of Hagar and Abraham. Praise Allah for Osama, His Servant.
“How many?” Muhammed’s question was short, worried about an interception of the satellite call bringing down the wrath of a U.S. Predator drone. Several of his jihadist friends had already been martyred by those inventions of the devil.
“Who knows, Muhammed? Several hundred, maybe thousands. We have been recruiting on many web sites over the past four years. The Americans are stupid and arrogant, and we are very happy that they have that Christian turn-the-other-cheek philosophy,” ending his comment with a chuckle. “It will be a simple thing.”
The line went silent as Muhammed disconnected. Muhammed believed, unlike al-Qaeda, that the West could be dismantled through simple terror. There was no need for the nuclear weapons that al-Qaeda had already purchased from the Ukraine smugglers. How were they planning on delivering their nukes?
Muhammed’s jihadist group, far more secretive than al- Qaeda, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihadists and all the other Godly groups, had more members, more discretion and a better plan through bombs and plague.
“Bombs are so easy in the United States,” Medhi said so often, and it was true.
“Kill the children, kill the women. Target those who will break the back of the West,” Muhammed told Medhi over and over. “If we kill the infidel’s children, blow up some nursery schools and hospitals, they will know the fear of Allah. How can Europe or America guard every single nursery school, high school, hospital and shopping center? But they will go broke trying. They are foolish.” Muhammed continued, a gentle smirk appearing on his face.
Muhammed was confident this new plan, this excursion of misery for the un-Godly, would evoke even more wrath from the western militaries; but whom would they retaliate against? Muhammed’s group, Jihad’s Warriors, never took credit for their acts of carnage and terror. Muhammed would let al-Qaeda take the credit.
Muhammed fell to his knees to thank Allah for giving him the plan, and he asked Allah if the rumors that the Twelfth Imam had arrived were true. There were the stories out of Iran that the Muslim Messiah, Muhammad al-Mahdi, had finally returned from the 9th century and was performing miracles throughout the land, healing the sick, curing the blind, and calling for peace with the Jews.
Jeff finished the paper, having forced himself not to think about the young girl and the hailstorm, and was finishing his latté when there was a news alert on the forty-inch flat screen.
“We have breaking news. Apparently the President, the Prime Minister of Israel and the president of the Palestinian Authority have agreed to an unprecedented peace treaty. The Trilateral Judeo-Islamic Treaty, when signed, will implement an independent Palestinian nation and will be a seven year peace plan, to be reevaluated in seven years. Let’s go to Condi Zimmerman in Jerusalem. Condi, can you hear me?”
“Yes Greta, I hear you loud and clear. This treaty, if implemented, will mean that for the first time in the history of mankind, Palestine will be a country. As you know, Palestine was ancient Philistia long ago, the land of Goliath. Remember the David and Goliath story? Peleshet is the Hebrew name for Philistia and means ‘immigrants and invaders.’ It will be interesting to see how everything works out.”
Wow, Jeff thought, that came out of nowhere. He had seen nothing about the coming peace agreement in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, The Wall Street Journal or the Drudge Report. A Palestinian State. Now that was significant, and troubling.
Jeff left Starbucks, heading to his meeting and then to the MARTA station to pick up Chad.