Jericho 3 Read online

  JERICHO 3

  * * *

  BY

  PAUL McKELLIPS

  * * *

  * * *

  Also from

  PAUL McKELLIPS

  * * *

  In a thrill a minute read, author Paul McKellips poses a frightening “what if” scenario that will leave the human race on the brink of certain disaster. When a series of attacks on animal researchers leave several people dead, the government—including the President—issues an immediate ban on animal testing. And that’s when the real trouble begins…

  At the heart of the action are two government agents, the dashing Commander “Camp” Campbell, a man as decorated for his bravery in Iraq as for his own self-professed charm. Lieutenant Colonel Leslie Raines is the more practical of the two, a woman defined by her dedication to rules. Camp has returned to the States, newly reassigned to a government-funded test site. When the ban on animals comes down, Camp pulls a restless act by making off with two hundred rats…and winds up in deep trouble. He is immediately banished for a year, his superiors hoping the ramifications of his stunt will have worn off by then. Raines, uncharacteristically covering for him, finds herself joining him. But where they are headed only increases the risk—both to themselves, to the scientist whose very existence is threatened…and the future of the human race.

  Who is really behind the ban on animal testing? And why? Could a deadly, dangerous fanatical group be behind the threat of a new vein of plague sweeping across the country…or worse, could it be someone people have come to trust?

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental. FBR Press is a registered trademark of the Foundation for Biomedical Research.

  FIRST EDITION: July 2012

  Copyright © Paul McKellips, 2012

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  Published by FBR Press

  Foundation for Biomedical Research

  818 Connecticut Avenue, NW

  Washington, DC 20006

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  ISBN: 978-0-9853322-0-4

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data are on file.

  0987654321

  Cover design by Patrick King, ImagineDesign

  Author photo by Liz Hodge

  QED stands for Quality, Excellence and Design. The QED seal of approval shown here verifies that this eBook has passed a rigorous quality assurance process and will render well in most eBook reading platforms.

  All eBook files created by eBook Architects are independently tested and certified with the QED seal. For more information please see:

  ebookarchitects.com/QED.php

  Dedicated to

  Rafed, Samir, Mohanned, Raouf and Jawed in Iraq and Afghanistan

  Contents

  ACRONYMS

  PROLOGUE

  PART ONE

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  PART TWO

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  PART THREE

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  In Memoriam

  * * *

  ACRONYMS

  * * *

  AAR After-Action Report

  ABP Afghan Border Patrol

  ANA Afghan National Army

  BUAV British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection

  BSL Bio Safety Level

  BW Biological Weapons

  CAC Common Access Card

  CW Chemical Weapons

  CW2 Chief Warrant Officer, Two and commissioned by the President

  DFAC Dining Facility

  FATA Federally Administered Tribal Area of Pakistan

  FOB Forward Operating Base

  HUMINT Human Intelligence

  IRF Integrated Research Facility

  ISAF International Security Assistance Force Joint Command

  ISI Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence

  LZ Landing Zone

  MILAIR Military Air

  MWR Morale, Welfare and Recreation

  MRAP Mine Resistant Ambush Protected

  NHP Non-Human Primates

  NIBC National Interagency Biodefense Center

  ODA Operation Detachment Alpha

  PET Positron Emission Tomography

  PETN Pentaerythritol tetranitrate(military explosive)

  SF Special Forces

  SHAC Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty

  TMC Troop Medical Clinic

  WMD Weapons of Mass Destruction

  * * *

  PROLOGUE

  * * *

  Forward Operating Base Lightning

  Paktya Province, Afghanistan

  They left the briefing with the Minnesota National Guard Colonel in the Tactical Operations Center and walked quickly through a row of B-huts on FOB Lightning. The clouds were low and heavy with snow. A light dusting of powdered snow covered the gravel.

  “Did you hear him?”

  “I heard him, captain. Just let it go.”

  US Army Captain Henry shook his head in disgust. “That’s not how they taught us at the Academy; I can assure you of that.”

  “Captain, let it go.”

  “How can you say just ‘let it go’? This is freaking tularemia, maybe a bio-weapon, and this idiot who teaches ‘lit’ in Saint Pete, Minnesota when he’s not a weekend warrior tells us not worry to about it…tells us he’s not going to elevate it.”

  “Well, now you’re speaking to a weekend warrior from Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Feel any better?” asked Major Dean Banks, United States Army Reserves.

  Captain Henry held his tongue. They walked past the dining hall and up the gravel road. Major Banks stopped and turned around.

  “Look up there, Henry. Do you see them?”

  Major Banks and Captain Henry lifted their eyes to the two hills that rose up from the valley floor. Mountain peaks encircled the valley. Soldiers from the army of Alexander the Great had built massive observation fortresses on each hill. For months they pulled stones and boulders up from the valley floor to build circular sentinel fortresses. No advancing army had any chance of surprising Alexander the Great.

  “Battle outposts. Alexander the Great. Not exactly a news flash, sir. They’ve been here since 323 AD.”

  “Genghis Khan came. The Russians came. Now the Americans have come. Every one of them had front-line sentinels, scouts whose job it was to sound the alert.”

  “Roger that, major. But the colonel took your alert and buried it deep within the infinite wisdom of a PhD. No offense, sir, but I don’t thin
k he’s used to working with a gynecologist.”

  Banks laughed. “I’m not accustomed to working with professors of literature either. But Uncle Sam is going to get a tour out of all of us, one way or the other. Don’t worry, captain. I informed the colonel, but I also sounded the alarm back at Fort Detrick and with Command at ISAF headquarters in Kabul. Battalion surgeons, Reserves or National Guard, have a slightly different chain of command, especially when it comes to infectious diseases.”

  They walked past the male latrines and the basketball court where some Army Joes were playing four-on-four in the brisk February breeze. The first dusting of snow had just covered the mountain peaks of the Hindu Kush heading over into Pakistan. Pulling the bolt lock back, they walked into the holding pen in front of the checkpoint. Thirty Afghan day-laborers were waiting to move through the turnstiles. They were searched on the way in each morning to make sure they weren’t carrying weapons or suicide vests and searched on the way out to make sure they hadn’t stolen anything as they cleaned American latrines, emptied American trash and mopped American floors. One path at the checkpoint led down to Terp Village, a small village within FOB Lightning’s walls comprised of 10 small B-huts with bunk beds where all of the foreign national interpreters lived. Next to Terp Village were seven Haji shops where the GI’s could buy pirated DVDs, batteries, Afghan rugs, or a carton of smokes.

  Miriam was sitting on the wood bench, on time and ready for work.

  “As-salaamu’ alaykum,” Banks said as he covered his heart with his hand.

  “Sahaar mo pa kheyr,” Miriam replied scanning the morning sky.

  “Every day you wear that same cheerful smile, Miriam…and that precious necklace. Is that crystal?” Banks asked.

  “I don’t know. It was a gift from my husband.”

  “Miriam is taking a three day leave after work next Thursday, Major Banks,” said Captain Henry.

  “Great. I’m sure you’re anxious to see your son,” Banks said as they all walked toward the checkpoint.

  Miriam had a pleasant personality and at times, an infectious smile could dash across her face. Like most Afghan interpreters, Miriam wanted the money but she didn’t like to work. Even though she was on call every day and every night, she was seldom required to work more than an hour or two each day. Major Banks thought he had found a soft spot in Miriam’s personality armor. He always had a kind word and a compliment for Miriam and the major hoped she was warming up to him.

  Duty guards from the 101st Airborne Division waived them through as Major Banks and Captain Henry walked past the plain-clothed Gurkha guards from Nepal with Miriam trailing a few steps behind. The Gurkhas were slight of build and not much to look at, but they were ruthless. They made fine mercenaries and their allegiance could be bought for $25 per day, seven days a week, on a six-month contract. They were effective. No one had successfully penetrated Lightning’s checkpoint since the suicide bomber detonated at the gate a few years before.

  When Major Banks and Captain Henry walked out of the Lightning checkpoint, they walked onto Forward Operating Base Thunder, the sprawling Afghan National Army base and home to the 203rd Corps. The Paktya Regional Hospital was only the length of a football field away from the checkpoint, a short walk along a nicely paved, American taxpayer-funded road on Thunder. A click behind the hospital a Russian Mi-17 lifted up and set its path toward Gardez. The Afghan Army preferred the Russian helicopters for high elevation terrain. Most of the Afghan officers and pilots spoke and read Russian. It was easier for them.

  “Never have quite figured that one out,” Banks said as he watched the Mi-17 thunder overhead. “The Russians come here, invade, and occupy for 10 years. They were the enemy.”

  “But they bought loyalty,” Captain Henry surmised. “Rubles. A man can smile at you, speak your language, and offer you tea for 10 years or more…as long as you’re handing out money.”

  An Afghan ambulance with lights on, but no siren, passed the three of them and pulled into the hospital parking lot close to the Emergency Room entrance.

  “There ya go; a Ford Ranger ambulance brought to you by Detroit and paid for by American taxpayers,” Captain Henry started. “American, Russian, Chinese, Pakistani, Iranian…the Afghans don’t give a damn who you are or what you think you’re going to do with their country. They’ll just wait you out and suck all your money until you go home.”

  Miriam kept her eyes down as Captain Henry finished his rant.

  “They teach you all that at West Point?” asked Major Banks.

  Captain Henry stopped, turned around, and pointed to the ancient battle outposts perched high atop the valley. “No…your Alexander the Great did. Isn’t that right, Miriam? Y’all are just going to wait us out.”

  Miriam was accustomed to speeches by Captain Henry and every other American officer she had worked under for the previous four years. That’s why she hated them, all of them; all of them except Major Banks. At least that’s how Banks saw it.

  The three walked through the front doors of Paktya Regional Hospital as 10 workers gathered around the front desk stood to greet them. Miriam walked around the entrance wall to her little desk space and sat down. No one had a computer or traditional office equipment. One long row of fluorescent lights lit the corridor between the front desk and the ER. The recovery bay was halfway down the other corridor. It was an open room with 20 beds which was usually filled to capacity.

  “Doctor Mahmoud just went down to ER,” said Abdul, the front desk manager.

  “ANA?” asked Captain Henry.

  “No, not Afghan National Army this time. An elder,” Abdul answered.

  Piping hot green tea was served in the same unwashed cups used every day prior, as Major Banks sipped to be gracious while sorting through patient records.

  “How’s our isolation ward this morning?” Banks asked to no one in particular.

  Abdul tried to answer but quickly gave up and looked over to Miriam and rattled off several phrases in Pashtu.

  “All three tularemia patients are resting comfortably. He thinks the room is a bio-containment ward so no one has gone in to see them yet today.”

  “Have they been fed?” asked Banks, now slightly agitated.

  Abdul shook his head. Major Banks and Captain Henry stood quickly as did Miriam. Banks reached for a new set of examination gloves and a sterile face mask. Henry did the same. Miriam pulled her necklace off, unhooked the clasp, and let the solitary glass bead slide off into her hand as she put the bead into the decorative glass vase on her desk. The vase was filled with hundreds of glass beads that supported the stems of her artificial flowers. She removed a tiny metal flask, dabbed a splash of oriental spice perfume on the inside of her wrist and poured the rest of the flask into a plastic iced tea bottle she had taken one day from the DFAC dining facility after a working lunch.

  Miriam’s flowers were the only colors in a very dreary hospital.

  “Abdul, send Doctor Mahmoud down to the isolation ward as soon as he’s out of the ER.”

  “Yes, Dr. Banks.”

  Two armed guards with the ANA stood outside the door of the isolation ward as Banks, Henry and Miriam entered. The guards followed but stopped just inside the door. Three ragged members of the Taliban were lying in their beds, two heads positioned against one wall, one head against the other. The beds were simple metal twin beds moved over from the Afghan barracks.

  “A few days ago we collected some respiratory secretions and blood from each of you,” Major Banks said as he paused for Miriam’s translation.

  “I don’t know this word…secretions?” Miriam asked before she translated.

  “Fluids.”

  As Miriam spoke the Taliban patients wouldn’t look her in the eyes even though she was wearing the hijab head scarf.

  “I got the results back from our hospital lab in Bagram. Each of you has tularemia, or rabbit fever. The lesions you see on your skin are also inside your intestines and in your lungs. That’s why you’re h
aving trouble breathing. It feels like pneumonia. You run a fever while you experience chills. You feel cold. Your body aches”

  Each of the three looked at their own skin ulcers as Miriam spoke.

  “One case of tularemia is rare. Three cases could be an epidemic. I need to ask you some questions. I need to find out where you were and what you were doing when you became sick.”

  As Miriam translated, the oldest Taliban patient rolled over on his side and faced the back wall away from Major Banks.

  Major Banks and Captain Henry noticed the attitude. This was not going to go well.

  “I have brought medicines with me. If I give you these medicines, you will live. Now that we know what this is, we no longer need to isolate you. The hospital can use normal biosafety level precautions now. But if you refuse the medicine, then your organs will shut down. You will lose weight. The lesions on your hands will form inside your eyes…then your eyes may burn in their sockets with ulcers that will boil like acid…until you die.”

  The youngest Taliban patient sat up quickly in bed and spoke directly to Miriam.

  “He says that he has a wife and a young son and that he is willing to die but prefers not to die today. He is willing to take the medicines,” Miriam said.

  Abdul opened the door to the isolation ward and delivered Dr. Mahmoud as instructed. Mahmoud was slight of build and his youth was punctuated with an obnoxious laugh and endless nervous tension. Nothing was calming about Dr. Mahmoud as he walked into the ward, fresh from pronouncing a Zazai tribe elder dead in the ER after a less than urgent ambulance ride.

  “Tell them Dr. Mahmoud will give them ciprofloxacin twice daily through an IV for 10 days. After that, they can go home, but they’ll need to take more pills,” Major Banks said to Miriam as he looked up to see Mahmoud.

  Miriam translated as much as she understood as Dr. Mahmoud started visiting with his patients. The oldest Taliban patient rolled over and covered his heart with his hand as the Afghan doctor walked by. Mahmoud touched his shoulder.