The Genesis Plague (2010)

you.’
    Brooke and Flaherty watched Stokes step over to the veil-covered display case in the room’s centre. ‘You see, it wasn’t only Lilith’s victims we discovered in that cave.’ Stokes pulled the veil away, revealing the most prized item in his collection, which was locked within a rectangular glass case. ‘It was Lilith herself.’

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    Mounted atop a cylindrical glass base inside the case was a translucent sphere, flat on top and bottom, and no bigger than a medicine ball. And frozen within it was a severed human head.
    ‘Exquisite, isn’t she?’ Stokes said, doting upon the severed head without utmost adoration. ”’Upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and the Abominations of the Earth.”’ He smiled. ‘Revelation 17:5.’
    Cold prickles shot down Brooke’s spine. Lilith’s ancient head was both beautiful and ghastly. Wisps of golden hair intermingled with blood swirls spun through the honey-coloured sphere which resembled glass. The flesh remained intact so that even now, millennia later, the refined face seemed locked in time, a snapshot of death that bore testament to a most brutal execution. The morbid lips remained in a taunting smile. But it was the punishing, inescapable stare of the eyes that was most frightful. Like staring at Medusa, Brooke imagined herself being turned into stone.
    ‘As you can see, she has been perfectly preserved,’ Stokes said. ‘After the executioners cut off her head, they immediately sealed it away, hoping that Lilith’s evil would be trapped for eternity. Obviously, they were wrong, because it wasn’t Lilith’s soul that had been the source of her malevolence. It was her DNA. And you can see how we got to it … where we drilled through the resin,’ Stokes explained, pointing to thin bore holes that extended through the resin like invisible straws, and penetrated through the skull’s soft crown. ‘All we had to do was extract the dormant virions and culture them.’
    ‘So if it’s so simple, why are you so concerned about the cave?’ Flaherty said.
    ‘Come now, Agent Flaherty,’ Stokes said, feigning disappointment. ‘A virus in a dish is useless. For a plague to have any effect, it must be spread - widely and rapidly. It needs a catalyst.’
    Then Flaherty remembered Jason saying how sick Al-Zahrani had been when they pulled him out from the cave. ‘You infected Al-Zahrani, didn’t you? Is he your catalyst?’
    ‘He’s infected, yes. But I certainly can’t rely on him. He’s only one man, after all. Let’s think of him as an experiment.’
    ‘Lilith was only one woman,’ Brooke countered. ‘And think of what she did.’
    ‘This isn’t 4000 BC, Ms Thompson. Things work much differently nowadays.’
    ‘So then what is your plan, Stokes?’ Flaherty insisted. ‘Sounds to me like you’ve got nothing to lose now. Why not just tell us what’s inside that cave?’
    Stokes enjoyed watching Flaherty stew the possibilities. He stepped up to the display case, pressed his hand against the glass, and stared at Lilith with deep reverence. ‘The inherent beauty of plague,’ he cryptically replied, ‘is that once it is introduced into a population, nature itself provides the most reliable and potent delivery system. It’s been that way since the beginning, just as God intended. Even the mightiest empires can’t stop nature.’
    For a long moment, Flaherty ruminated on the phrase ‘delivery system’. ‘You aren’t seriously considering biological warfare,’ Flaherty said. ‘It violates every peace treaty. The United States can’t afford to—’
    ‘No missiles will be fired, I assure you, Agent Flaherty.’ Stokes’s breathing was getting shallower. ‘Once the infection begins, no one will be able to stop it. In under an hour this virus rips through cells … gets into the blood, the lymph nodes, you name it. In less than two hours, it strikes the lungs and becomes pneumonic.’
    ‘Nu-what?’ Flaherty said.
    ‘It becomes airborne. Someone can catch it just by breathing it in,’ Brooke said in horror.
    ‘Very good, Ms Thompson,’ Stokes said. ‘Suffice it to say, when all is said and done, an entire generation of Arabs will be wiped out … and any threat of Islamic fanaticism right along with them. And there will be zero accountability for the United States. It will be viewed as Allah’s divine retribution.’
    ‘That’s not true,’ Flaherty said. ‘Scientists will