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  “That is correct, Director, but I’m Irish-Catholic. I’ve had my genome surveyed as part of a class assignment four years ago. I don’t have any markers indicating I identify with that population, but I won’t know for sure until I test the contents in the canister. By the way, Director Davies, from what you just told me, I will inform our Italian teammates that I suspect we are looking a virus that can identify a specific genetic marker of a haplogroup of the murdered women. That should speed things up. Can you have blood samples sent directly to our lab in Rome from victims across the island?”

  “Will do. It’s good to hear you’re finding your way through this. Good luck in Rome, we need to know how this kind of an attack on a specific group people was accomplished. A Genecaust, huh? It’s a damn sick world, agent. Oh, sorry about calling you an agent, but I’m sure you’d make a good one Dr. Mather. Someday, perhaps?”

  “I’m flattered, sir, but after we get through this successfully, I’d prefer Special Consultant.”

  25

  Aftermath

  Early May, escape from Socotra - Subash is taken for a ride.

  Dr. Subash Sen trashed the clothes he’d worn on his excursion to the coast to watch his death fleet fly low overhead. He stepped out of the airport men’s room dressed as the man he desired to be, wearing the white robe of an Arab Prince, complete with Royal banded headdress and Ray-Ban sunglasses and headed directly to the VIP lounge.

  Standing alone by a large window, Sen hugged a slim black leather briefcase. Speaking to no one, he continuously checked the TV monitors scattered about the lounge for news about his scripted end of days for the targeted population of Socotra.

  Too soon, perhaps in another hour.

  A young woman, dressed as a flight attendant approached him from his left and stood a few feet away. “Sir, your plane is ready.” She extended her arm. “May I carry your briefcase?”

  He stepped back. “No, I mean that won’t be necessary.”

  The attendant acknowledged his reply with a quick nod. “Of course, sir, the word is follow me.”

  The keyword triggered an immediate compliance with the plan of Katya’s conditioning, he sat in a specific chair against the bulkhead of a charted plane facing aft. A small polished table separated him from an empty forward facing seat. He flew alone. The window next to him, a large oval portal, allowed a view usually reserved for pilots. Fixated on the Socotra’s northern coastline rapidly receding behind the ascending plane he hoped to witness his drones’ suicidal crash into the deep water. He sighed. flying in the opposite direction of the fleets’ final resting place, he wouldn’t see that happen.

  He waved two fingers at the attendant. “How many hours to Berlin?”

  “There has been a change in the plans, Dr. Sen.”

  Bells went off in his head. Katya, that bitch, what had she done? His heart raced and he gripped the arms of his chair so hard his knuckles turned white.

  Where was his family?

  He lifted his head to get the flight attendant’s response. She didn’t make eye contact, another bad sign, and continued to inform him of their situation with her dry, flat voice. “Director Donahue decided the safe house in Hong Kong is better equipped for a man of your position. We will arrive in Hong Kong in eight to ten hours. Can I get you a drink and refill your flask?”

  He needed the welcomed distraction of a good drink. “Do you have Amrut, 2010?”

  She smiled. “Of course, sir. It is a most popular drink with our customers and crew.”

  A man’s voice broke through his peaceful nap. “Sir, we will be landing in Mumbai to pick up the package you ordered and top off our fuel before continuing to Hong Kong. We’ll only be on the ground for twenty minutes. Would you like the ramp lowered to stretch your legs?”

  He nodded, wiping the sleep from his eyes, and started to clean his sunglasses. The oval portal drew him to watch the planes’ low approach over some of the poorer sections of Mumbai on their final approach to the airport.

  The city looked hot and miserable at any altitude, but at lower altitudes it seemed worst. The memory of his impoverished childhood growing up in the streets of Bangladesh flooded his mind and his hand began to shake. Pulling the sleeve of his robe over it, he wedged it in his lap and raised his empty flask for the attendant.

  She came straightaway. “Amrut, sir?”

  “Yes, and tell the captain I won’t be needing the ramp.”

  From his seat, he observed the ground crew loading his packages into the cargo hold.

  No customs for me.

  He smiled at his privilege seeing several sealed brown boxes, easily mistaken by the ground crew as an excess of duty free liquor hoarded by yet another wealthy Arab prince, his nom de spy.

  He felt smug about his decision to steal as much of the electronic gear from his PSI Corps laboratory as time permitted. They might trace the shipments to the Mumbai airport, but never farther. He deserved to keep the tech. PSI Corps owed him that much and more. The three million he secretly wired to his account in the Bahamas also represented money PSI Corps owed him for his work of the past two years. If they hadn’t forced him to reward himself they might have enjoyed a better relationship with him. Besides, at least two billion Euros has been spent on leveraging the latest demonstration of his scientific abilities. He leered at the thought they planned to use the incident in Socotra to net him another 50 billion Euros. Alone on the plane, he decided to sleep but not before he toasted himself and his success.

  Strange, he remembered Katya flying in the helicopter with him as the armada of drones flew overhead. Then she vanished from his mind. Perhaps there were too many toasts.

  * * *

  Katya watched Dr. Subash Sen sleeping in his own private cosplay dressed as a rich, aloof, Arab prince. She had much to look forward to in Hong Kong. She worried that her conditioning of Subash during the next two events in his life would come to fruition.

  Success would mean at least two hundred billion dollars and a key position in a multinational corporation.

  Yeah, she liked the sound of that. Not bad for a touch of hypnotic voodoo magic.

  * * *

  Director Dirk Donahue threw his coffee mug at the one-way mirror separating his office from the PSI Corps interrogation room. “What the hell, Jack, what do you mean you can’t locate Dr. Sen? The little brown bastard can’t cross the street without holding someone’s hand.”

  “Right, gov’na, but if you don’t mind my saying so, but who’s been holding his hand all this time? I’m guessing we better start looking for her.”Just thinking of Katya knotted his innards. She was terror on two legs, but much as he hated to admit it, he needed the bitch.

  He shook his finger at Jack. “I’ve got friends at Homeland who put her face on every TSA device in existence. No fucking hits. Meanwhile, Sen’s lab had been stripped and they both slipped off the grid. On top of that, we don’t have enough of the poison they used on Socotra to kill a Muslim rat.”

  “Well gov, if you remember, we buried one of those gas tanks just outside that desert compound in Yemen.”

  He needed the doctor to manufacture new poisons and someone like Katya to make sure he did it. He stopped to breathe. With one hand on his belly trying to message away a sharp pain, he shook his finger at Jack. “Look you thick-headed idiot, if we don’t locate Sen and that bitch who adopted him, you, me, your goons and anyone else this damn company deems at fault here is dead. Freaking dead, you get me? Now, get your ass outta here and go find them.”

  He collapsed in the chair and dropped his head to his folded his arms. The hell with PSI Corps, they can go to bloody hell.

  Moving one arm, he reached into the left drawer of his desk and pulled out his bottle and his Glock.

  26

  A Bio Lab in Rome

  May, hidden CIA Level Four Bio Lab - Desert Discovery

  The bomb squad examined the canister Meret, SAs Fairchild and Holcombe retrieved from the desert compound before it left the
helicopter and declared it safe to transport through the city to a secure Level Four Bio lab funded by the company.

  While overseeing the transport team install the canister inside the lab within a transparent tabletop container, she and MJ received a call from Director Davies. “Latest word from Socotra is close to 1500 dead or dying females. To date we have not, repeat, not received any reported death by a non-Muslim female, of any age. I won’t speculate on the implications of this if the data holds true. That will be in your report, Dr. Mather. Good luck and stay safe.”

  Meret and MJ had access to the device from four sides of the transparent tabletop container though sealed gloves and the mechanical hands of remote manipulators older techs often refer to as ‘waldos.’ The transparent case was built to withstand leaks and minor explosions from items placed inside it, but Meret never fully accepted that. As soon as the testers and handlers left the lab, She and MJ completed dressing in protective clothing and were about to enter the sealed, pressurized locks into the lab proper.

  Meret adjusted her shoulders and shook her gloved hands. “You know MJ, one of the things we’ll have to get for the company is a Level Five Bio Lab. From now on we’ll need a complete DNA engineering toolkit as well as DNA detection and cleaning to keep up with the bad guys. The chance this is our last rodeo with a Genecaust is zero. You know, the good news is we should be immune to this gas. It was designed for a specific population. The bad news is that we’re not sure this is the same poison they use on Socotra. This could be something else. How are you doing with your suit?”

  “I’m okay, I’ve logged several hours in one of these. I’m good with the environment. Your research at the hospital must have required them.”

  “I always feel uncomfortable dressing myself in anything that looks like it’s been designed by Fisher-Price. Let’s see what’s in the canister we dug up.” Meret closed the door to the dressing area behind them and hit the pressurize button to bring the atmosphere of the air lock and the lab to the same level.

  They cautiously approached the clear protective container. Meret grabbed a pair of handles of one of the remote manipulators and tested their response in the some fashion a magician might warm up his fingers. “This unit is a bit older than the ones I a work with, but they all function pretty much the same.”

  She turned to look through MJ’s visor. “Lets decant small samples from the canister into six special ceramic tubes for analysis by the mass spec. I’ll attach them to the canister and you manipulate the safety valve on the connection.”

  She pointed her Waldo to the canister’s fill valve. “The process of attaching a small ceramic tube to the lager canister requires a short flexible tube,” she held it with her Waldos. “The short tube comes with two built in pressure gauges. The large pressure gauge measures the gas in the large canister and the smaller pressure gauge measures the gas in the ceramic tube. We need to attach the large gauge to the canister and the small gauge to the ceramic tube. Okay?”

  MJ nodded. Her Waldo gave thumbs up.

  “There’s only one problem with this design. Look here.” Meret held the short tube with two gauges in her Waldo’s hands. “The genius that designed this older version only installed one control valve and placed it between the two gauges.”

  “Is that going to be a problem?”

  “It shouldn’t. There are two of us to watch the process and as you can see, each ceramic tube has its own valve you twist shut before removing it. I’ll close the main valve and then secure the main connection to the large canister. While I continue monitoring the gauge, you attach a ceramic tube to the open end of the short tube. You tell me when the ceramic tube is secure and I’ll open the valve. I’ll monitor the canister’s gauge while you monitor the ceramic tube’s gauge. If anything goes wrong, all we need to do is shut off the single valve. Sound good?”

  “Yeah. Let’s go.”

  Meret attached one end of the connecting tube to the canister and tapped the end of her mechanical finger against its safety valve. “The valve is closed now, preventing the gas in the container from getting out. Go ahead and connect the first small ceramic tube.”

  MJ selected a ceramic tube from a rack of tubes already in position inside the clear box.

  Meret warned, “The ceramic tube is only good up to 40 psi, since the canister’s pressure is much higher, I will open the valve slowly.”

  MJ’s military voice replied, “Copy that. Attaching ceramic tube.”

  Meret observed her technique, “Good job,” and then applied minimal force opening the valve. After an initial hiss, the gauge showed the pressure in the tube crept up to 40 psi. “Reversing torque . . . closing valve” She pulled her Waldo hand from the valve. “Okay to remove ceramic tube.”

  Meret exhaled. “Well done. Five to go.”

  After they had successfully filled and sealed four small ceramic tubes, Meret noticed some dust or small particulate accumulation beneath the connection to the canister after MJ attached the fifth metal tube. She poked it with the tip of one of her Waldo’s fingers. “MJ, see this? What do you make of it?”

  “Could be corrosion.”

  Meret clicked her tongue. “I don’t like it. Could this from being buried in the sand? From the toxin? From what?”

  “Can’t say.

  The hiss got louder.

  MJ yelled. “Close it, don’t open it.”

  “I’m not. It’s getting worst.”

  The hiss increased. Meret dove under the metal table pulling MJ with her as the small ceramic tube exploded.

  With ringing in her ears and not knowing what may happen next, Meret quickly scrambled on all fours back away from under the table until her feet hit the sealed door. MJ, only a few away, used the same maneuver. The pair slowly stood and quietly surveyed the damage to the lab. Meret examined both of her gloved hands and body for signs of any leaks.

  MJ’s muffled scream suddenly penetrated the ringing in her head and broke through the low rumble of escaping gas from the large canister. When Meret turned to help, the situation became clear. MJ hopelessly used her hands trying to cover the large hole something tore through her face guard. Her wide eyes pleaded with Meret rushing to be by her side.

  She held her shoulders in a tight grip. “It’s okay, it’s okay, you’re not contaminated, your body would have reacted already.” She pulled her closer to get her attention. “It’s not a poison, you’re okay. We’re immune, MJ. We won’t get sick. You only have a cut on your cheek.”

  Meret pushed and pulled her own face protector over her shoulders until it hung behind her like a hoodie. “See, it’s not a poison.”

  They both turned to watch the remaining gas leave the canister. The roar of its release turned into a diminishing hiss only to be replaced by the terrible sound of the klaxon announcing the bio emergency they knew they would survive.

  Meret pulled her closer looked at the cut on MJ’s face. “We need to clean that up and cover it.”

  MJ grabbed her wrist with shaking hand. “What make’s you so sure we haven’t been poisoned?”

  “The Director’s message confirmed my suspicion that the horrific attack on Socotra was engineered for one subset of the population and none other, probably based on a specific haplogroup.”

  MJ wrinkled her brow. “A what?”

  She dabbed at the cut with some antiseptic “Sorry, that stings. The word haplogroup comes from the Greek word ‘single’ and the English word ‘group’ refers to a group people, in terms of molecular evolution, who share a common ancestor.” She put her thumb against he chin and dabbed again. “Hold still, I need to clean this.”

  MJ raised her voice. “How does that make us immune?”

  Meret took the cover off several butterfly bandages and carefully applied them as she lectured softly. “Since a haplogroup is a genetic line of descendants identified by a particular single DNA mutation, which can be used as a marker to identify those members, anyone not in the haplogroup is immune to the virus
we just released throughout the lab.”

  “Yea, but how in the hell did you now I wasn’t among them?”

  Meret wiped MJ’s face dry. “The haplogroup for the horrible atrocity in Socotra, translates to the daughters of Hagar, a slave of Abraham, through her son Ishmael. In other words, today’s modern female Muslims living on Socotra.” She looked at MJ’s face and winced a smile. “That my friend, is an apocryphal group we don’t qualify for.” She stood still and looked at the destruction. “Oh, shit, the canister blew apart at the juncture of the feeder valve. That’s what gave us the explosion.

  “What’s next?”

  “Next we examine the virus in the ceramic tubes that survived the explosion and look for how it finds the marker for that haplogroup before more people die.”

  27

  (R1$Pr (4$9

  Late May, Rome - A New ToolBox

  Two weeks after the attack on Socotra, Meret and MJ knew everything about the Genecaust’s death toll and the delivery except who was behind it and how they used the smart killing virus (SKV) to find a specific marker. They needed both pieces of information to stand a chance of preventing the next attack.

  Meret, frustrated by their inability to locate Granger, and MJ’s frustration to be reassigned to a desk job on his case, took solace drinking coffee al fresco in many of Rome’s outdoor cafes within walking distance of the hidden lab.

  “I’m sorry, MJ, I wish we had more tools to examine and manipulate DNA engineering. We need them to find Granger and to step up our ability to detect and treat terrorists targeting and altering DNA.”