some others, had discovered in 1953.
‘Otherwise known as A, G, T and C. A always pairs with T, and G always pairs with C. That’s important because if even a minute amount of India-1 strain of smallpox ever gets into the wrong hands, a single strand of smallpox DNA will always pair off with its complimentary sequence, and the bioterrorists can use a probe of known DNA to analyse that sequence. Not only that, Mr O’Connor, using a technique known as polymerase chain reactions, or PCR, means that we only need tiny amounts to produce all of the original DNA. In short, we are getting very close to being able to manufacture the complete genome of smallpox or any other deadly virus.’
Curtis O’Connor listened with wry amusement as Doctor Braithwaite filled three pages, making extremely complex chemistry look simple. She explained the PCR laboratory techniques that would enable a bioterrorist to manufacture new DNA using enzymes that would replicate sequences between primers bound to highly specific sites on the original DNA strand, much the same as DNA replicated itself within a normal cell. As she finished outlining the chilling possibilities of the ‘brave new world’ of biochemistry, her green eyes flashed at him with fury. Doctor Braithwaite would, Curtis thought, make an outstanding Professor if she ever chose to go down that route. Right now he wondered how he might get her on side. He needed her expertise in what would be the most lethal laboratory on the planet.
Kate finished her ‘lecture’ with a final and simple diagram. ‘It’s now possible, Mr O’Connor, to replicate deadly viruses like Ebola, Marburg and smallpox by taking a single strand of nucleic acid and joining it to another to make a double.’
Listening to Kate, Curtis O’Connor almost kicked himself. Of course! Where the single strand meets its double. The chilling words of Khalid Kadeer had suddenly become very, very clear. The final attack would be biological, involving the synthetic manufacture of a virus whose DNA the terrorists had access to.
Curtis O’Connor was only half right. Throughout history science had always had a dark side, and Kadeer was close to harnessing a power that would crush the human race.
CHAPTER 40
K halid Kadeer reached for a date in a bowl on the low table, listening intently as al-Falid outlined his plans for the first warning attack.
‘My original plan was to detonate a large amount of explosive on the bottom of the harbour, to be delivered at night by rolling 44-gallon drums off the back of a slowly moving fishing trawler. The infidel has changed the rules and trawling at night is no longer possible. I’m still hoping that we can get some explosives into position, and we’ve been carrying out tests with small aluminium pontoons that have inflatable airbags attached to them. The main attack will have to be carried out on the surface using HEAT – high explosive anti-tank rockets. But don’t worry, Khalid,’ al-Falid said with a sinister smile. ‘I’m having the trawler modified into a floating shaped charge, and it will follow the HEAT rockets to the target, although the timing will be crucial as it can only happen at high tide.’ al-Falid pushed one of the mats aside and drew a diagram of the target city on the dirt floor, using two candlesticks to mark the extremities of a world-renowned icon. ‘Even though they’re minor, the preliminary attacks on the shore will still cause the infidel untold grief. The land attacks are all scheduled to occur just minutes before the major seaborne attack. If the first ship fails for any reason, a second ship will be following in reserve. The reserve ship’s target is here,’ al-Falid said, pointing to another well-known landmark.
‘The crews for the two ships are in place?’ Khalid Kadeer asked.
‘It’s taken more than four years to bring this to fruition, Khalid, but we have a man on the Ocean Venturer and the tanker makes regular trips from the Middle East to the target. If Allah is willing he will succeed. The plan for the reserve ship is also well advanced. We’ve secured a long lease on the Jerusalem Bay, a 7500-ton container ship. It’s only small but it will suit our purpose.’
Khalid smiled. The name of the second ship held a powerful irony. ‘And the fertiliser?’ he asked.
‘We have a contract with the UN to deliver fertiliser to Liberia. The infidels weren’t interested in such a small contract, so it has worked out perfectly.’ It had indeed been a masterstroke. ‘We’re also in the process of having the Jerusalem Bay registered in the target port. As a regular visitor to the port the harbour authorities will get used to it coming and going and they will relax the need for entry with a pilot.’
Nearly 9000 kilometres away, the Jerusalem Bay was to the north of the port of Monrovia, maintaining a steady 12 knots in the pre-dawn darkness. The cargo had been provided by UN funding for the struggling war-torn nation of Liberia. In amongst the badly needed water pumps and generators were twenty containers of fertiliser from the target country. Not all of the contents of the containers would be delivered to the farmers who desperately needed it. Five very special containers would be filled with fertiliser explosive in a heavily guarded warehouse on the outskirts of a Muslim ghetto in Paynesville, 16 kilometres down the coast road from the capital, Monrovia.
‘The regional seed and fertiliser company that we purchased in the target country two years ago is producing everything we need, and we’ve also started up a small trucking company in the city itself. It’s not making much money though,’ al-Falid smiled ruefully, ‘because the infidels are corrupt and the big contracts are always worked out in advance.’
‘That’s not a bad thing for us, Amon. If we’re not competing too hard, then no one will be taking much notice. Do we have enough stingers for the first attack?’
‘I purchased them in Darra Adam Khel and,’ he said, looking at his watch, ‘they should have been transferred to one of the Pakistan Intelligence Agency’s own trucks. The ISI will deliver them to Karachi. The stingers for the other warning attacks have already been delivered by tugboat. You were right, Khalid. The infidel’s security concentrates on container ships. Tugboats don’t attract much attention; and if the first attack is to succeed the tugboats and the stingers will be vital,’ al-Falid acknowledged, pointing to a critical weak point in the Islamists’ plan. ‘The infidel’s soldiers are among the best in the world, Khalid, and they’ve been training for an event such as this.’
‘The infidel’s soldiers are formidable, Amon, but they’re only lightly armed. You’re confident of getting the stingers out of Pakistan?’ he asked. al-Falid nodded. ‘If Allah, the Most Kind, the Most Merciful is willing, both the tugboats and the stingers will make it to their destination. We have many friends in the Pakistani Intelligence, Khalid, and all of them are dedicated to Islam resuming its rightful place in the world. I’m hoping that the wharves of Karachi will not be a problem.’
It was one of the CIA’s and the US Administration’s great frustrations. The ISI, the powerful Pakistani Inter Service Intelligence agency had its own hard-line Islamic agenda and it was not about to change for even the Pakistani President, let alone a country like the United States which provided India with so much support against the Muslims in Kashmir.
‘The tugs are ready?’ Khalid asked, pouring some green tea from the ornate Russian samovar standing on a brass tray. al-Falid nodded. ‘My son, Malik is in charge of them,’ Amon said proudly, then his face darkened at the thought of his son. Malik had lost his wife and two young daughters at the hands of the notorious Egyptian secret police that were part of the US Administration’s ‘Extraordinary Rendition Program’; a program that used secret prisons in third countries around the world to get around the Geneva convention on torture. Amon’s daughter-in-law was caught up in a demonstration near the Sa’d Zaghlul shrine in Cairo. The opposition party Kifaya, or ‘enough’ in Arabic, had been protesting against twenty-five years of the dictatorship in Egypt when the riot police had waded into the crowd. The two little girls had been trampled and when Malik’s wife had tried to shield them, she had been beaten to death by plainclothes security men. It had not escaped either al-Falid or his son Malik’s notice that the Egyptian regime received more than US$2 billion a year from the United States, the second highest funding support in the world after Israel. Now al-Falid and his son Malik would get their revenge.
In the port of Monrovia, three battered-looking ocean-going tugboats, the Winston Churchill, the Montgomery and the Wavell, were preparing to put to sea. The Winston Churchill was completing a final delivery of radioactive teletherapy heads in case a subsequent warning attack became necessary. The Montgomery and the Wavell ’s first destination was Karachi, where they would pick up the consignment of stinger missiles. From there, after some stinger missile training en-route, they would head towards one of the world’s finest harbours and set in devastating motion the plans for the first warning attack.
