Pandemic

Home's palms shot up in the air. "I am not proposing negotiations! I am suggesting a stall tactic to make them think we are complying in order to buy us a little more time. Nothing more."

The President stared at the table for several seconds before nodding resignedly. "I'm afraid Andrea is right." He turned to his Defense Secretary. "Start making plans to pull our troops."

Whitaker opened his mouth to rebut, but the President cut him off with a sweep of his hand. "That leaves us forty-eight hours to track down these sons of bitches," the President said. "I authorize you to use any and all means necessary to do just that." He looked around the faces at the table and then stared directly into the camera. "Am I clear?"

CHAPTER 28

HARGEYSA, SOMALIA

Hazzir Kabaal stood outside the complex in the punishing African midday heat, waiting.

His expensive desert boots had crusted with dirt and grime and for the first time in his life he had let his beard grow. Realizing that no one in the complex, or all of Somalia, cared about his attire, he had traded his pressed khakis for the more comfortable native robes. He wondered if he would ever again have cause or opportunity to don his favorite handcrafted Italian suits or leather shoes. Not likely, he realized with a twinge of melancholy.

A cloud of dust streamed down the dirt road and toward him. A block away, the cloud slowed and the dust settled enough to allow the tan-colored truck to emerge from within, allowing Kabaal to see that Abdul Sabri was the sole occupant in the truck.

Sabri brought the car to a stop directly in front of Kabaal. The driver's door popped open and Sabri stepped out and then stretched at the side of the road.

Kabaal walked over to greet him. "Abdul, you are well?"

"I am," Sabri said, stifling a yawn. "Your friend is not."

"My friend," Kabaal grunted. "What did Sergeant Eleish have to tell you?"

Sabri shrugged and then shook his head.

Kabaal narrowed his gaze. "You were going to talk to him first!"

"Hard to talk to someone who is leaping out of a building," Sabri said unapologetically.

"This is not good, Abdul," Kabaal said. "So you have no idea who he might have spoken to?"

Sabri shrugged again. "It's likely he spoke to someone, though."

"Why do you say that?" Kabaal asked.

"There has been much activity at the mosque."

Kabaal felt his hair stand on end. Each word out of Sabri's mouth raised his level of alarm a notch. "What activity?"

"The police have arrested the Sheikh and his son," Sabri said as nonchalantly as if commenting on the weather. "They are rounding up others from the mosque for questioning."

Annoyed at his lieutenant's indifference, Kabaal shook a finger at him. "And this does not concern you?"

"Not particularly."

"For the love of the Prophet, why not?"

Sabri flashed the widest grin Kabaal had ever seen from him. "It has started, Abu Lahab."

"What has?"

"After the police raided, there was a protest outside the mosque," Sabri said. "It turned into a riot. In Cairo! The people rose up spontaneously in the streets."

"What happened to the rioters?" Kabaal asked.

"The troops came. Several were killed, the rest arrested."

Kabaal frowned at Sabri and shook his head in exasperation. "But this is all good?"

"If the brothers are willing to stand up to the might of the Egyptian army in Cairo, what do you think will happen in Baghdad, Kabul, Riyadh, and Jakarta?" Sabri drifted a finger from Kabaal to himself. "It's because of us, Abu Lahab. The Brotherhood! We have empowered the people. Wait until you see what happens when we bring America to its knees."

Kabaal considered Sabri's argument. "I wonder," he said distantly.

"There's nothing to wonder, Abu Lahab. America is weak. With the help of the virus, she will collapse under her own weight like a rotted tree in a storm. And then we will be able to deal with the treacherous infidels who run our governments." He looked down and nodded, giving Kabaal the impression that he was talking to himself. "And we will start with the worst of the offenders in Egypt. This is what you dreamed of, is it not? Our lands governed by the laws of the Shari'ah. The return of the Caliphate."

For the second time in a week, Sabri surprised Kabaal with his passionate outburst. Kabaal realized that Sabri's normally disinterested exterior was nothing more than a facade. Like the door on a blast furnace, it concealed a raging fire within. And Kabaal was no longer certain that the heat inside could be contained.

"Abdul, if the American President has any sense at all, he will decide to pull his troops out of our occupied lands," Kabaal said. "Then the events can unfold as you have described them without the help of the cursed virus."

Sabri grunted.

"You think not, my friend?" Kabaal demanded.