Free Ebola K: A Terrorism Thriller: Book 2 by Bobby Adair Page B

was the primary reason he’d been selected. Najid was sure that Hakimi’s anger would drive him to torture any emissary sent. Jalal, being weak, would make no effort to hide anything, and so would suffer less in being convinced. It was a kind of humanity that made sense in Najid’s mind.
    A man clad in black, exposing only his eyes, stood beside Jalal, holding a knife in a fierce grip as though he expected any moment to be attacked by a lion. Everybody in the world had seen videos just like it before. There was no lion to come, only poor kneeling Jalal and a loquacious, ranting man, showing his anger through the way he held his knife.
    Najid watched with the sound turned down, not interested in the embarrassing ramblings that only served to make the black-clad brute appear mentally unstable. The babbling finally reached its end. The man in black positioned himself behind a struggling Jalal, and then went to work sawing through Jalal’s throat until his head came off. Blood was everywhere. The brute didn’t know it, but in killing Jalal, he’d infected himself with the Ebola virus and was going to die an even more brutal death. That made Najid smile.
    The video didn’t end. In an unexpected surprise, Firas Hakimi himself walked into the camera frame with no mask, as bold as a peacock. He picked up Jalal’s head by the hair, raised it in front of the camera, and went on a rant of his own.
    Najid paused the video a few minutes into the tirade. He took a screen capture of the image and pasted it into a graphic program, not sure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing. He zoomed in on Hakimi’s face, angry mouth open in mid sentence. Najid looked closely and nodded as he felt at least one of his troubles start to melt away. Spatters of Jalal’s blood were on Hakimi’s cheek. Any doubt that Hakimi would also be infected with Ebola disappeared.

Chapter 22
    Austin Cooper stood in the center of a red dirt intersection, looking east and waiting for the sun to rise. After a night of fitful sleep, spending a good deal of it watching the moon and stars through the holes in the roof, he’d finally gotten out of bed and decided to walk out to Kapchorwa’s main intersection. One of the monkeys who’d taken over the hospital’s roof and exposed beams as their new playground squatted at the peak of the roof, as motionless as a furry gargoyle, watching Austin watch the sky.
    From inside the hospital, he heard Kristin cough. She’d come down with the fever the day before. Sadly, as Austin’s strength grew, hers faded. Now she was on a mat, lying on the floor among the remaining soldiers. One of them had already died.
    When someone brushed past a fragment of burned door still attached to a creaky hinge, Austin looked over at the hospital. Dr. Littlefield came out. Austin turned back to watch the sky.
    “Waiting for the sun?” the doctor asked, as he walked up.
    Austin nodded. “I never appreciated the beauty of the dawn before. I was always rushing off to school or trying to get to Starbucks while the line was still short.”
    Dr. Littlefield took up a spot beside Austin and turned to watch the dawn come. “Too many neon distractions back in the States.”
    Austin chuckled. “That sounds like a line from one of those eighties hair band songs.”
    Dr. Littlefield smiled. “My roots coming out.”
    Austin drew a big breath of the morning air. “Now that Kristin is down, do you worry?”
    “About?”
    Austin looked at the doctor. “You’ve been exposed longer than any of us.”
    “I was at first.” Dr. Littlefield didn’t turn away from the sky. “I wonder now if I’m a miracle of immunity.”
    Austin didn’t know what to say in response.
    “I was in Gulu in 2000.”
    “That doesn’t mean anything to me.” Austin forced a smile. “I’ve never heard of Gulu.”
    Dr. Littlefield pointed northwest. “It’s a town a couple hundred miles that way. A little bigger than Mbale. There was an Ebola outbreak there