“Yes, yes. We know that, Dr. Crawston, you don’t need to tell us how to suck eggs,” Director Lopez interrupted.
“Chrissake, Suzanna, ease up!” Hall knew his fellow director was extremely ambitious and in her eyes, Dr. Evangeline Crawston would be a potential threat.
Herself no pushover, the good doctor countered with a measured smile. “Please, call me Evangeline… Suzanna.”
Lilburn sat back, amused at the power play.
Evangeline continued, her clipped British accent cool and professional. “Who or whom. It doesn’t necessarily mean this is the action of a hostile government. The threat could equally come from within. A United States citizen exercising what they deem to be a retaliatory attack on the system, or the manic fringe of an animal liberation group. Unleashing a disease like foot-and-mouth is in fact quite simple — and very cost effective. If we can eliminate that scenario then we’re one step closer to finding out what we’re up against.”
“Good point.” Hall was impressed. “Go on.”
“If the threat is internal, then start profiling citizens who have made threats to the government, ones with links to the Gaza Strip in particular but also broaden the field to countries with known foot-and-mouth enzootic…” Evangeline saw brows wrinkling. “It means prevalent to… countries in Asia, South America, the Middle East and Africa. If it is an organization, which in my opinion it may well be, then there are a number of groups you should be interested in — al-Qaeda for a start. Although being more of an ideological group, they may not be your top priority… the other extremist groups under its umbrella may be the ones to prioritize.”
“What’s your gut feeling?” Hall was anxious to know.
“As we can narrow it down, insofar as we believe the source is from the Gaza Strip, we have the likes of Hamas, the Army of Islam, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. I’d like to see some more intelligence.”
“And what about here in the States…” The first signs of a crack in Lopez’s armor.
“Have you started trawling the chat sites, social media, for key words and historical data on past threats?”
“Done that, and the process is ongoing.”
“Good.” Evangeline was decisive. “I would also suggest we ask the ever-so-cooperative Israelis to do the same. I would suspect it’s also in their interest not to see the States suffer the colossal financial implications of foot-and-mouth.”
“We have research into those cost implications.” Hall tapped a pen on the table. “Do you concur with the estimates bandied about?”
“Yes, I do, upwards of fifty billion dollars for a serious outbreak.”
Hall grimaced, as if her answer had confirmed his darkest thoughts. “Border security provisions? Suggestions?”
“Three scenarios. One: show your hand and let your border agents know of an impending threat; or two: take a more proactive approach to passengers and goods from those areas we know have ongoing infections, especially Gaza. Three: step up searches without telling border agents of the specific disease. If you decide on the former, you’ll be letting the commercial and political world know you may already have the virus — and that’ll be all it takes for competing nations to implement embargos. But if you don’t, then the chances of a successful border violation are even greater.”
“Tell us about more about the disease. What can we expect?” Hall spoke in a monotone.
“Foot-and-mouth is a highly contagious viral disease. It affects cattle, pigs, sheep and other cloven-hoof animals — also deer, elephants, giraffes, zebras — even hedgehogs. Transmission can be by a number of means: direct contact with infected animals, airborne, perhaps up to forty miles. Then you have contamination by animal feed, vehicles, human feet… the list goes on.”
Director Lopez leaned back in her chair. “Can we inoculate for it, stop it in its tracks?”
“You can — and you’ll have to if it’s found here — but that only works if you have plenty of time, which I would say you don’t. And if the world sees you inoculating, it knows you’re worried and then it’s too late. The dollar implications have already happened — the terrorists have done what they set out to do.”
Hall had a question. “How will they get it in, if they haven’t already?”
Evangeline had gone over this scenario many times in her career. “The virus can remain viable for different periods on different materials, for example, if it’s in fecal material it can last up to one hundred days. Getting it into the country is relatively easy — it just takes a few pieces of infected material to escape detection at the border, then be grown on to increase the virus. A school pupil could do it. Then it’s just a case of infecting animals. As simple as rubbing an infected piece of swab into an animal’s mouth, or perhaps making an aerosol and just spraying it on its nose.”
There was a knock on the door. Hall called out for the person to enter and a piece of paper was handed to him. Placing his glasses on he quickly read the contents. “Well, that was goddam quick.” His glasses were taken off and placed on the table. “Got to hand it to the Israelis, when they act they act fast. Mossad picked up the farmer who supplied the original virus. Now we know it’s no longer a threat. It’s real.”
“Pass it here, Allan.”
Hall shuffled the note to Lopez. “Mossad extacted information from the farmer.”
“Fingernail by fingernail, I imagine.” It was the first time Lilburn had spoken in the meeting.
Hall looked at him sharply. “It appears this farmer has terrorist links. He peeled off pieces of infectious material from his animals and posted them to his contact.”
“So we have an address, here in America. We need to act fast.”
“Hold your horses, Doc. The virus wasn’t posted to the States. It went to Syria.”
“Oh shit!”
Lilburn was surprised — it was the first profanity he’d heard pass her elegant lips. Uh oh, he thought, this can’t be good.
Lopez handed the note back to Hall. “This changes things.”
Another knock on the door.
“Enter.”
A staffer appeared. “Sir, Ma’am. Mossad have supplied further info on the address in Syria. The house belongs to Mubarak Azrak — while he’s not known to us, his brother is.”
“And?”
“The brother’s name is Karam Azrak.” The staffer placed a file before Director Hall who, upon placing his glasses back on, read the first few pages. That, for the time being, was all he needed to see. Looking over the rim, Hall glanced at them. “Oh shit ain’t the half of it. Karam Azrak is one badass hardcore.”
“How bad, sir?” inquired Lilburn.
“Put it this way, if we had a pack of cards, like we did in Iraq, this man would be the wildcard,” Hall paused. “We can forget about this being an internal act. Azrak is Takfir wal-Hijra.”
Lopez looked sick. “Damn.”
“Dr. Crawston, I assume you’re familiar with this particular organization?”
“Somewhat, but I only have a little knowledge of their structure.”
“Takfir wal-Hijra is linked to al-Qaeda, it operates in several countries. To say they’re Islamic extremists does them a disservice — they’ll even kill other Muslims if they think they’re in the way. Martyrdom is their idea of greatness. These pricks like to keep a low profile. They’ll shave beards, drink alcohol, eat pork, whatever it takes to make themselves invisible in a Western country.” The director slammed his fist down on the table. “Hell, leastways we have a name; we now know the group behind it. Suzanna, get our teams looking to see who we have in the States right now with links to this group. Dr. Crawston, Lilburn, stay close. We may need you again shortly.”