The Genesis Plague (2010)

escape. Scathing testimony provided by the surviving troops of the 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Division Expeditionary Force, also emphasized Crawford’s schizophrenic behaviour, as well as the lifesaving air attack staged by the GSC mercenary unit.
    The day after he’d been taken into custody, Randall Stokes had suffered a miserable and poetic demise, choking to death on his own blood in a quarantine ward at Nellis Air Force Base. Shortly thereafter, NSA cryptographers succeeded in cracking the sophisticated encryption on Stokes’s computer hard drive, and retrieved all the operational details for Operation Genesis, including schematics for the breeding facilities installed beneath the Zagros Mountains and gene sequencing data for the Genesis Plague. There were even simulation models that forecast the spread of the disease - an expected 90 per cent kill rate of the Middle Eastern male population in just the first three months of the contagion’s initial introduction.
    Auditors had forensically reconstructed the money trail for the project’s financing to reveal a complex web of twenty-seven phantom accounts in Switzerland, the Cayman Islands and Bermuda, all funnelled into a numbered account held by Our Savior in Christ Cathedral. The majority of funding had been misappropriated from defence money earmarked for biochemical research at Fort Detrick shortly after the 2001 terror attacks. The balance of funding came from charitable donations to Stokes’s evangelical mission made by a veritable ‘who’s who’ of wealthy donors. Every contractor and benefactor associated with Operation Genesis was being vetted for complicity in the plot.
    Just last week, both Jason and Meat had been recommended for the highest commendations for their heroic actions in averting what might have been the most egregious act of bioterrorism ever documented. But the kudos didn’t end there. There were other rewards too.
    ‘Calm down, it’s not a subpoena,’ Jason said in a taming voice. He held the envelope out and waited for Meat to accept it. But Meat just stared at it.
    ‘What is it?’
    ‘Just open it. Come on … it won’t bite. Trust me, you won’t regret it.’
    Meat reluctantly snatched it away from Jason. After confirming that his name and address appeared in the small window on front of the envelope, he began tearing at the seal.
    ‘After that fire at the safe house burned out,’ Jason explained, ‘six skeletons were recovered from the ashes. Five were unidentifiable. But one of the skeletons had a very unique dental implant, as well as a titanium pin implanted surgically in the left ankle to correct for an old soccer injury.’
    ‘All right,’ Meat said, not grasping the connection. He peeked into the envelope and saw the backside of what looked like a cheque.
    ‘Turns out the FBI matched the dental work with records already in its database,’ Jason explained. ‘The serial number on the titanium pin came up too.’
    Meat froze before fishing out the contents from the envelope. He looked at Jason in disbelief. ‘Al-Zahrani?’
    Jason grinned widely and nodded. ‘The only positive ID. Of course, those photos I took before we set the place on fire helped too.’
    Suddenly the piece of paper pinched between Meat’s fingers felt impossibly heavy.
    ‘Go ahead, look at it,’ Jason said, pointing at the paper.
    Meat squared his shoulders and cleared his throat. Slowly he flipped the cheque over. His mouth dropped open when in the numeric field he saw nothing but two threes and five noughts separated by two commas. For once, he was speechless.
    ‘Your cut of the bounty. Three-point-three million. A bit bigger than expected since Lillian had GSC match our share.’
    ‘I always liked her,’ Meat said.
    ‘And you’re about to like her even more … because she agreed to send Jam’s and Camel’s widows their cut. Hazo’s sister, Anyah, got his share. I’ve got an envelope for Tommy, too. How’s that for classy?’ He patted Meat on the shoulder.
    Finally Meat raised his eyebrows and said, ‘Whoa. Now that is a nice payday.’
    ‘Sure is.’ Jason raised his champagne and made a small toast. ‘Here’s to living to fight another day.’
    ‘I’ll drink to that,’ Meat said, clinking his glass, then gulping the champagne.
    ‘Hey, Google!’ a distinctly Bostonian voice called out.
    Jason turned and saw Flaherty strutting towards him with a confident swagger. When he saw the beauty on Flaherty’s arm, he