The Genesis Plague (2010)

Al-Zahrani and his surviving posse to take cover in the mountain.
    ‘Wow. That is huge ,’ she said, mouth agape. ‘That’s like catching the Devil himself.’
    Flaherty tried to wrap his brain around it too. ‘It’s ten million dollars huge,’ he murmured.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Nothing.’ He shook his head. ‘Wow. I just hope he’s okay.’
    ‘Al-Zahrani?’
    ‘No … Jason. See, Al-Zahrani is Bin Laden’s new right-hand man. And, of course, Bin Laden was responsible for what happened at the World Trade Center. Jason’s brother had been an insurance broker for Marsh USA. Went to work early that morning … to his office on the ninety-fifth floor of the North Tower. They never found the body. So indirectly, one could say that Al-Zahrani, or at least what he stands for, was also responsible for killing Jason’s brother,’ he explained.
    She nodded.
    ‘Jason must be freaking out.’
    ‘I bet he is.’
    ‘I hope he doesn’t do something drastic.’
    ‘What, like kill him?’
    Flaherty nodded. ‘Not that anyone would shed a tear for Al-Zahrani. But Jason could get himself in a lot of trouble.’
    ‘I doubt he’d be anything but a hero,’ she disagreed.
    ‘I suppose. God, imagine when people find out about this. It’s amazing.’
    ‘So let’s see those pictures,’ she said, anxiously eyeing the BlackBerry.
    ‘Sure, let’s have a look.’ Flaherty read aloud the name Jason had assigned the first attachment, ‘Mass Grave’. He exchanged an uneasy glance with Brooke, then opened the file. When he saw it, he cringed. ‘Yikes. Take a look at this.’ He handed the BlackBerry to her.
    The picture clearly showed a dense pile of human bones. Brooke wasn’t sure how to react. ‘This is what Frank’s team had been studying?’
    ‘Seems so. There are a few other pictures here,’ he said, showing her how to open the remaining files.
    There were two more shots of heaped bones showing wider angles that Jason obviously had taken to emphasize the magnitude of what he’d found. The continuous death pile seemed to circle the cave. In the images, Brooke could make out the rocky walls and ceiling.
    ‘It’s pretty spacious in there,’ Flaherty noted as he looked on.
    ‘And it’s packed full of bones,’ she muttered. ‘God, look at all that … There’s got to be hundreds, maybe thousands …’
    ‘I’d go with thousands.’
    The next picture Brooke brought up hit her like a sledgehammer. ‘Look at this,’ she said, turning the display to Flaherty.
    He squinted to make out the details. ‘What are those?’
    ‘Mandibles.’
    ‘Mandibles?’
    ‘Jawbones,’ she said, grabbing her own chin.
    ‘I know what a mandible is. It’s just that …’ Still looking confused, his eyes went back to the picture. He pointed to his own mouth and said, ‘There aren’t any—’
    ‘Teeth!’ she exclaimed. ‘Of course! This is where Frank got the teeth. From these bones.’
    ‘All right, smarty. I would have figured that out. Still don’t understand this bizarre fascination with teeth.’
    ‘Me neither,’ she admitted.
    Three more pictures remained.
    The next image took Brooke’s breath away.
    ‘What is that?’ Flaherty said, tipping his head to see the image. It wasn’t at all what he might have expected. ‘Hubba hubba. Who’s that?’
    At first, Brooke didn’t respond. She was absorbed in the image - a wall etching that depicted a voluptuous, naked woman in full-frontal. Flaring out from beneath her raised arms were bird-like wings and she wore an elaborate conical headdress. In her left hand, she held a serpent. Perched on her right hand was some kind of bird. And beneath her feet was a pile of human skeletons.
    Flaherty tried to be more specific: ‘This supposed to be the same woman whose head got lopped off?’
    ‘Looks that way.’
    ‘Why would they behead an angel?’
    Without taking her troubled gaze off the image, Brooke sharply shook her head. ‘No. Not an angel. Protective spirits … the good spirits,’ she explained, ‘are always shown with upward -pointing wings. See here how her wings are pointing down?’
    ‘Okay. So what does that mean?’
    Brooke took a deep breath and looked up at him. ‘It implies that she is a demon.’

46
    ‘A demon ?’ Flaherty said, smirking. Glancing at the naked woman portrayed in the picture on his BlackBerry, he felt like he was looking at the primitive equivalent to a centrefold model.
    ‘That’s right,’ Brooke said.
    ‘Hmm. Too