The Hammer of God

Then it happened. There was a break in the traffic and the vehicles all picked up speed. Doueed put the ear buds back in and turned it up. Rounding a bend, with the morning sun obliterating the windscreen, Hassad went to turn to admonish the youth again about the racket, when he caught a glimpse of a brake light and reacted quickly — and just in time — as the truck ahead had hit its air brakes and lurched to a stop. His fast reaction narrowly avoided wedging the nose of the Nissan under the rear of the truck’s carriage. Unfortunately, the truck driver behind him wasn’t as quick. The rule of maximum gross weight being what it is, the one-ton Nissan collapsed from the impact of the 30-ton cement truck. The jolt shattered the windscreen and side windows as the car’s frame buckled from the front and rear as if in a giant vise. Hassad was bludgeoned by the air bag exploding out of the center of the steering wheel as the engine compartment accordioned into a flattened hulk. Amil, next to him, was knocked unconscious by a similar concussive blast from the passenger bag. Sarim and Doueed in the back were crushed by the flattening of the Nissan’s rear under the wheels of the huge truck. The pressure of the back seat folding in on them, made them explosively vomit blood and parts of their intestines, which sprayed all over the front seat and its occupants.

The two truck drivers ran to the car crushed between their vehicles. Quickly surmising that the two in the back were dead, they felt the necks of the two in the front seat. The driver was dead but the passenger was still breathing. The trucker held the passenger’s face into the airbag until he too stopped breathing. The other one reached into the front seat and removed the map of Liverpool and the thermos bottle from between the seats. He climbed up the back of the mixer and threw the thermos into the aggregate mix, sealing in cement its deadly viral residue forever. They then feigned panic. Flagging down anyone to help.

Traffic was at a standstill for more than two hours.

?§?

In Liverpool that morning, the plant opened promptly at 8:00 a.m. Production was fully underway as it had been for most of the year. The big pharmaceutical contract had given new life to the factory and most of the local workforce. Bryan Jennings, the plant manager, expected a routine day. His calendar showed a morning visit by the Ministry of Health’s inspectors. Same as every week for the last 20 weeks of production. Jennings was proud of his line: 100 days of two-shift, full-run production, and not so much as ten minutes lost. That was because he ran a tight and clean ship. He instituted work rules that called for the periodic maintenance and sterilizing of the line at half-shift intervals. He doubled the number of quality control samplings and created a worker incentive program to keep things running smoothly and efficiently.

It was around 11 a.m. when the inspectors arrived. He led them right to the QC lab. Midway to the clean room, inspector 537 asked, “May we sample right from the line this time?”

That request threw Bryan a bit. For the last twenty weeks, the inspectors were satisfied that his quality control lab held more than adequate daily samplings for them to test. Although couched as a request, Bryan knew that it was actually an order. To maintain decorum, he acquiesced, holding himself back from inquiring about the change of procedure. Bryan knew the inspectors were not bound by law to offer him an explanation or a reason. In fact, they had been very reasonable in not springing any snap inspections or undercover investigations on him thus far. He watched from his office overlooking the floor as the line was stopped, while the inspectors withdrew and sealed samples of the serum from three points along the manufacturing process.

When they finished, a claxon sounded. The next 100 bottles would have to be trashed as a precaution against any variation in the process that came from restarting the line. Bryan didn’t give a moment’s thought to the waste. He did, however, continue to wonder about the change of pattern of the inspectors. Later that day, as he was compiling his daily report, Bryan mentioned this anomaly. But he was confident of his workers, machines, and systems, so the mention was merely a footnote.

?§?

At the morgue, the London police were baffled that no relatives came forward to claim the four deceased Middle Eastern men from the wreck the day before. A check of their papers indicated that one DOA was Egyptian and another Saudi. The two men riding in the front were both Yemeni. The Knightsbridge address that one of them had on him was the only available information about their local whereabouts. Immigration confirmed that they gave the same address on their entry forms when they disembarked their various aircraft.