The Genesis Plague

37

Like those of a fiendish voyeur, Randall Stokes’s prying eyes glimmered with immense pleasure as he watched how his unwitting Arab detainees reacted to the eerie noises emanating deep within the mountain’s belly. In the background, mechanical sounds echoed through the passage — gears engaging, pistons whining, a droning whoosh. The Arabs were mistaking the noises for guns, or artillery. A man with a patchy beard was trying to hush the others, but to little avail. Adjusting the audio level, Stokes listened to them yammering on in their native tongue. During his extensive tours in the Middle East, Stokes had picked up enough Arabic to get the gist of the animated exchange. The Arabs spoke of infidels, Allah’s divine plan and retribution in the name of the Great Prophet. All the while, they were readying their weapons. And while the four underlings, huddled around the dim cell phone light, attempted to hash out a hasty defence strategy, Al-Zahrani was surprisingly cool; resolute beyond what the situation warranted. Though he stood away from the light, the infrared clearly showed him studying the exchange — assessing behaviour; mentally separating the strong from the weak. Clearly he wasn’t pleased with what he was hearing.

There was an unmoving solemnity and drive about Al-Zahrani that commanded respect — qualities typical of a general. The fact that this revolutionary was a star Oxford University graduate and hailed from a wealthy Saudi oil family was most intriguing. Most men could only dream to gain the luxurious life that Al-Zahrani had staunchly abandoned. Such indifference to material things required incredible inner strength, yet, to Stokes, underscored the potency of the new enemy that threatened the modern world. Tainted ideology was a most fearsome force.

In videotapes Stokes had heard Al-Zahrani repeatedly mention that Allah spoke directly to him and protected him like an avenging sentinel. If that claim once seemed farfetched to Stokes, Al-Zahrani’s current actions dispelled any doubt that the man believed his own story. The dire circumstances Al-Zahrani was facing would ruin even the best of men. Clearly, however, this cave bore little threat for him.

‘Who are you?’ Stokes said, glaring at the notorious terrorist.

In Al-Zahrani, Stokes couldn’t help but see his own reflection, for he too claimed to speak directly to God and proclaimed to know the path to Heaven. And just as Al-Zahrani had been tutored by Islam’s most prestigious imam, Stokes, too, had been enlightened by a prodigious mentor. For an iota, Stokes entertained the possibility that God might be pitting him and Al-Zahrani against one another.

Lord, show me the righteous way, he thought.

Suddenly, Al-Zahrani silenced his four underlings in a punishing tone. Stokes watched as the fearless leader pointed towards the noises and scorned the men for their faulty appraisal. ‘What you hear is not soldiers,’ he seemed to be saying. Stokes pieced together his next words: ‘The soldiers are behind us … back there.’ Al-Zahrani pointed in the opposite direction. ‘If there is an enemy in our midst, it is not human. Yet we must confront it. We cannot turn back now.’

Goosebumps ran up Stokes’s spine; he was amazed by Al-Zahrani’s remarkable precognition.

Next, Al-Zahrani commanded the men to move forward — towards the commotion.

Stokes eased back in his chair and pressed his fist to his chin, wondering how this might play out. He hadn’t expected them to press on. A retreat was the expected outcome — the sane choice. Either Al-Zahrani had profound faith … or a death wish. Harbouring concern that the Arabs might critically impact Operation Genesis, Stokes quickly dismissed the notion that these five men could materially affect what was now under way. The numbers were heavily weighted against them.

Concern quickly gave way to intrigue. Stokes squared his shoulders and leaned forward with renewed intensity.

The Arabs disappeared from camera view for a three-count before the next camera picked up their trail. Now the passage was tightening, allowing just enough room for single-file procession.

The ringleader, a man with a patchy beard, was at the front, cell phone light extended out in his left hand, AK-47 clutched tight in the crook of his right arm. The other three men trailed in his wake, weapons at the ready, and Al-Zahrani pulled up the rear, swinging a handgun at his side. They’d stopped talking and their trepidation was rising to a fever pitch. Now even Al-Zahrani was visibly tense, because the metal-on-metal sounds they’d been hearing had given way to something much different.

Ahead in the darkness, something was moving.

Writhing.

‘Best to turn around, my friends,’ Stokes muttered, his left eyebrow tipping up.

The audio crisply picked up scratching and clicking.

The procession halted abruptly as the ringleader made the first visual confirmation.

When he spotted the horror that lay ahead, he screamed out in terror and wheeled around so fiercely that he barrelled into the two men behind him. He stumbled and the cell phone fumbled out of his grasp, clattered along the rocky ground.

Then the panic infected the others.

‘Go back! Go back!’ the ringleader was pleading as he regained his footing. He shoved at the others, trying to speed them along. Spinning, he attempted to retrieve the cell phone, but it disappeared beneath the slithering mass that crashed into him like a violent wave. He recoiled, levelled the AK-47, and opened fire. The weapon’s consecutive muzzle bursts flashed brilliant white in the infrared images on Stokes’s monitor; the deafening retort squelched the computer’s speakers.

‘No …’ Stokes grumbled.

Comfortably ahead of the others, Al-Zahrani was now back in the previous camera frame, blindly clawing his way through the darkness. But something scurried beneath his feet and caused him to trip and fall. He screamed out when something took a chunk of flesh out of his hand.

Then Stokes’s eyes bounced back to the other frame where the gunman lost his footing and suddenly tumbled backwards, forcing the assault rifle to swing up over his head, spraying bullets along a wild arc. The lethal barrage strafed the two men trailing behind him about the face and chest, sending the pair crumpling to the ground.

An instant later, a ferocious explosion ripped through the passage and obliterated the camera.