created to explain his sudden entry into the narcotics business.
When he stayed silent on the subject, Losa just smiled. “Even if everything you’ve done recently is a smoke screen, I believe that Christine Barnett’s animosity toward you is real. You’re going to have a hard time going back.”
“Are you coming to a point?”
The man pulled out a business card and slipped it into Rapp’s shirt pocket. “When you’ve killed Carlos—and I assume that will be in the next week or two—call me. I think you’d find working for my organization very rewarding.”
Rapp nodded and turned, but then paused when Losa spoke again. “And if your friend Irene Kennedy finds herself needing to make a quick exit from the United States, my offer extends to her as well.”
Rapp walked back to the Humvee thinking that maybe Coleman and Claudia were right. In the private sector all you had to do was stand around while people threw money at you.
“What the fuck was that all about?” Esparza said.
“He figures I’m going to kill you in the next couple of weeks and wants to give me a job after I do.” Rapp slid into the passenger seat. “Now let’s get the hell out of here before someone changes his mind and starts shooting.”
CHAPTER 38
NORTH OF HARGEISA
SOMALIA
SAYID Halabi embraced the last person in line and stepped back as all six filed away. Allah had provided a rare overcast night, blinding any U.S. surveillance that might be overhead and extinguishing the stars. He was standing at the edge of the hazy ring of light created by a bonfire some fifty yards away. The light breeze swept the smoke toward him, bringing with it the sensation of warmth and scent of charred wood.
Near the fire a young girl lay on a cot, deathly still between violent coughing fits. From a safe distance, a man filmed the towering flames that framed her. He followed the embers swirling through the air for a moment and then focused on the six martyrs approaching the girl. Each wiped a hand across her face, smearing their fingers with saliva, blood, and phlegm, and then rubbing it into their eyes and noses.
When it was done, two of the men threw the cot and its dying occupant into the fire. Her screams filled the air for a moment before going silent forever.
Gabriel Bertrand looked on from beneath the tree he was chained to, watching in horror as the girl’s body writhed and blackened. Finally, he turned toward the people stripping off their clothing and cleaning themselves with powerful disinfectants. Halabi didn’t want them to leave a trail of disease that Western authorities could follow to him in Somalia. But more than that, he wanted the infection to appear in America as though it had come from nowhere. As though it was a punishment from God’s own hand.
Tears reflected on the Frenchman’s swollen cheeks and he began to sob. Whether he wept over his own fate or that of the world was impossible to know. Of course, he had broken easily. The removal of one of his fingernails had gained his cooperation and a few minor burns near his groin had ensured that it would be enthusiastic.
Halabi now had an optimized plan for spreading YARS throughout the West while sparing the Middle East to the degree possible. Individual targets had been identified, protocols had been refined, and timetables had been developed. Using software downloaded from the Internet, they had run a number of simulations based on different variables.
Even if nearly everything went wrong during deployment and the West’s reaction was more robust than anticipated, the death toll would be no less than ten million, centered on major cities in America and Europe. If everything went to plan, though, the outcome would be very different. The disease would run out of control, creating a pandemic that would fundamentally change human existence for generations.
The computer application that they were relying on had originally been designed to research the spread of the Spanish flu. Comparing that disease with YARS was a fascinating exercise, as was comparing the world it devastated to the one that existed today.
The very name “Spanish flu” was just another lie foisted on the world by America. The truth was that the disease had first taken hold in Kansas City military outposts. It killed more U.S. troops during World War I than combat, spreading easily in the cramped conditions that prevailed on ships, battlegrounds, and bases.
The initial reaction of the medical community had been