From the Mouth of the Mamba

By William Stegall

This operations is based upon author's knowledge of how a Bio-Terrorist operation, with direct leads to the Al Queda Terrorist organization, could have happened. Indeed, there are certain truths mixed in with this story, but it would have been considered classified by both the government of the United States and the Secretary General of the United Nations. 11 September 2001 de-classified this story which began in Nazi Germany and continued into a small remote village in the Congo. There are strong ties into the Vatican, the World Health Organization, and a highly placed terrorist mastermind. The ultimate plot is to spread a deadly disease around the world with almost instant death to the people infected. This trail of terror and the pursuit of those involved will lead from New York City to Africa, Geneva, and culminate in the Caribbean Island of Curacao.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Apr 22, 2002
• ISBN: 9781469714226

William Stegall

William Stegall, a 30-year veteran for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as an undercover officer, spent six years in Afghanistan and Iran, the hot spots of today. His career spanned the globe on assignments in eleven countries, from Viet Nam to Turkey. He and his wife live in Cape Coral, Florida.

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FROM THE MOUTH OF

THE MAMBA

International Bio-Terror plot with Middle

Eastern connection.

William Stegall

Writer’s Showcase

San Jose New York Lincoln Shanghai

From the Mouth of the Mamba

All Rights Reserved © 2002 by William R. Stegall

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any

means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,

taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the permission in

writing from the publisher.

Writer’s Showcase

an imprint of iUniverse, Inc.

For information address:

iUniverse, Inc.

5220 S. 16th St., Suite 200

Lincoln, NE 68512

www.iuniverse.com

Any resemblance to actual people and events is purely coincidental.

This is a work of fiction.

ISBN: 0-595-22278-1

ISBN: 978-1-4697-1422-6 (eBook)

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

IN MEMORY

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

EPILOGUE

IN MEMORY

This novel is dedicated to a fallen colleague, Johnny Michael Mike Spann. Members of the Al-Queda/Taliban terrorists in Mazar-eSharif, Afghanistan killed Mike in November 2001.

Mike gave the ultimate in doing his duty to defeat terrorism in all its many facets. He was a brave and dedicated CIA operations officer who was part of a most honorable profession. There were others before him, and there will be those that follow, but Mike will always be a legend.

I have no doubt that Mike is now with his God advising of the next OPLAN for defeating this evil that is trying to destroy what we believe in.

To quote our DCI, Director George Tenet: May God grant him eternal peace and give his wonderful family the strength to carry on. His CIA family, too, is in mourning. But just as we grieve together, we work together to continue the mission that Mike Spann held sacred. And so we will continue our battle against evil—with renewed strength and spirit.

Mike, may you rest in peace, and may your family always be provided for. SEMPRE FI!

I wish to thank my wife, Constance, for her usual dedicated help in proofing, and editing. I also owe thanks to my stepdaughter, Kimberly McNeill, for her fine job in the final editing of this book. As a New York City schoolteacher, she was certainly affected by the events of 9/11.

CHAPTER 1

Briggs Chester had arrived the evening before at JFK in New York City on a long flight from Honolulu. Dan Mallory, the man he worked for, called and told him he should drop whatever he was doing, as it was extremely important for him to come to New York. Briggs worked for Dan for many years. He also dated his daughter, Camille, for most of those years. He knew that Dan’s cry for immediate responses usually meant trouble for Briggs, and often danger was part of that trouble. Still, he had to come.

Briggs was now sitting in Dan’s business office facing his old friend and employer.

Briggs, good to see you. How was the flight over from Hawaii? I hope the apartment was clean and stocked for your arrival. I guess Camille raised hell with them over there yesterday when she went to check on it, and found it a mess, with no food in the pantry, and even more important, in your case, no beer.

Everything was fine, Dan. You are looking fit. I guess this place must still agree with you. What’s so important that you had me rush back here? I had a fishing trip on tap for tomorrow—one that I had planned months ago.

Sorry about that. I think there will still be plenty of mahi-mahi in the Pacific when you get back. You want some coffee?

You know me, Dan. In the mornings, I can always drink a cup of coffee. Dan rang his secretary, who brought in a tray with a pot of coffee and two cups.

Well, as you know, my company bought a pharmaceutical company last year. The company was going to go out of business, and I was able to buy it for practically nothing. It is getting so difficult to get any new drug approved by the FDA! Many smaller manufacturing companies have been forced out of business over the last several years. The secret, of course, is a lot of research into new drugs, and that takes a lot of money. I have the money, and plus, it can be a good tax write-off. That was Dan, thought Briggs. Always in competition with the IRS.

Tell me Briggs, what do you know, really know, of HIV and AIDS? He had me there, thought Briggs.

Well, I guess I know what the average person knows. If you get it, you might as well lean down and kiss your ass good-bye.

Don’t be crude. It used to be thought that only the gays got it. Well, I guess they are still the most likely ones to get it, but because of so many people from all walks of life giving blood, and receiving blood, a lot of the world’s population has started to test out HIV positive through no fault of their own. As a new owner of a pharmaceutical company, I now have a real interest in perhaps being the company who comes up with the magical cure for the disease.

"Okay, Dan. You are now a real saint, and are looking for a way to be the savior of mankind. What does that have to do with me? If I

may be so bold to ask. I don’t hang around the people who give it, or get it."

As I just said, you don’t have to be around the people who you think get it and give it, as you so crudely put it. Anyway, this stuff is spreading like wildfire across the globe, and is becoming a major epidemic. Most people are fairly convinced that it originated in Africa, and spread slowly outward. Hell, there has even been rumors that it started from some of the people over there getting it on with monkeys and chimps. I don’t really know. I personally think that it has been something that developed slowly because of a bad DNA duplication and just continued to spread through generations, similar to what occurred with Sickle Cell Anemia. Anyway, when I took over the company, I immediately increased the staffing in the research department to start making a major effort to develop a drug that might be effective in treating the disease. I’ve had research people over in Africa for almost a year now, looking into the roots of the disease. We found one village late in the year where just about every single person in the village tested positive for HIV. That is rare to find in one locality, although it did happen down in Venezuela with the Huntington disease. Want more coffee?

Yes, thanks. What are you leading up to, Dan? I hope you don’t think I am going to start helping your people track this thing down.

Just have some patience. Damn, you have no place to go today, and I am paying your expenses. Anyway, my on-site director for the group of scientists over there started digging into any kind of medical history he could find in that village. As you can imagine, there was none, only what the older people in the village could remember. Some of it was being passed along to the younger children by their parents as the years went by. Apparently, the first recorded case of what we now know as AIDS happened about thirty-five years ago.

Briggs Chester had known Dan Mallory for many years, and worked for him on special assignments for most of those years. Dan’s daughter, Camille, was very special to Briggs because they had been dating for most of those years. One day, they would finally decide to take the plunge, and get married, but so far, neither of them had felt the real necessity of doing so. Briggs could not help but wonder what this protracted story Dan was telling him would lead to.

So, you can imagine my man’s surprise when he finally learned that the United Nations had been running a sizable research center outside of that village back then, which is no longer there. It closed its doors about ten years ago. The head man of the village had some old files of papers that was passed by his father, who was the village head man back when the center was first established. Dan took a sip of coffee before continuing.

At first, the village man did not want to let my man even look at that file. But after a lot of talk, and passing of money and other things the village headman wanted, like Japanese battery operated radios, he did finally let my man look at this old file.

According to documents in that file, the research center at the village was called ‘Project Beta’, and came under the control of the UN’s World Health Organization out of Geneva. My man assumes that there was another identical research center like that one located in some part of India called ‘Project Alpha’ because of a couple of memorandums to this Beta group from the Alpha group. It was in a village down in the Punjab area of India. Other than that, the rest of the papers were simple accounting type of letters covering payrolls to some of the villagers.

It does not say what the villagers were being paid for, and the village headman would not discuss it at all with my man. My man photographed all the documents before giving the file back to the headman, and sent them back here to the office. Dan sat back to watch Briggs.

I don’t see how this is anything that your new company would get concerned about, Dan. I would assume that WHO probably have research centers all over the world in the less developed countries. Isn’t that part of their charter under the UN?

Exactly, and that is what I assumed was the facts, until approximately two weeks ago. My man contacted the WHO regional office down in Kinshasa, Zaire, to try and see if they still had any records available on their research at Project Beta. The man he was finally passed to in Kinshasa said that WHO had never had a research center over at that village. In fact, he said, WHO had never had any research centers in all of Africa. He told my man that they only helped local governments establish clinics for treating the ill. He got all the information my man had, including the fact that he had seen this file over at that village. His parting shot to my man was that he should just forget it, as whatever he had seen was probably just the imagination of the village headman.

That’s strange, isn’t it? said Briggs. I wonder why they would deny that the center was over there. Maybe it was just something fabricated by the village headman to get money and some boom boxes from your man.

Well, it gets worse. I had a contact of mine do some research here at the UN headquarters of some old historical books they maintain, mostly financial status reports showing where all the money the UN brings in from member nations goes. He located the books covering Africa and India for 1965, and found a mention of Projects Alpha and Beta, but only that the projects had been given a budget of fifteen million dollars each. The entries referred you to another descriptive ledger that normally explain what the projects were doing, and what the expenditures had been for that fiscal year. That book was not available, and the librarian advised my contact that it was assumed the book had been misplaced or lost.

Wouldn’t they also have it on microfilm in their archives?

We looked at that, but the section covering those two projects was not on film with no explanation as to why. Finally, my contact called the public relations office for WHO, and made a request for information on those two research centers. After a week, which was the day before yesterday, they sent my contact a written letter saying there were not any such research centers, nor had there ever been. They also reemphasized the point that the fellow in Kinshasa has made—there had never been a research center in Africa.

That brings you up to date with what I know, Briggs. It has my curiosity peaked, and I am going to dig and get to the bottom of it. This is where you come in. I want you to put together a small team and head on over to Africa and start tracking all of this down. I may be overstating it, but something is not right.

Well, I agree with you that someone’s records are piss poor, but I sure don’t see the sinister plot you apparently do. Why can’t your company people dig a little deeper? Why not have your director over there go back to the village and bribe the village headman a little more?

That was what I was coming to. I did send him back last week. I just got word from the office over there yesterday that my man and the village headman were both killed by a group of natives just outside of the village. They were hacked to pieces. Dan had always had a technique of getting your attention when you were least expecting it. He suddenly had his.

Damn, I’m sorry Dan. What did the police say happened?

There is not much police over there. The army went in and beat a few villagers and recovered my man’s body, but they are just putting it down to a marauding group of guerrillas that just happened to catch a white man out in the open, and probably attacked him to rob him. That is the official report that the American Embassy in Kinshasa received from the military. I want you to find out what really happened.

Briggs, see if you can recover that file the headman had. I also want you to find out what happened in that village over the past thirty-five years. Money will be no object, and you can hire the best people you can get to form up your team. I’m setting you up a cover office in Kinshasa, and would like to see you operational in a week.

A week? Christ, you have to be temporarily off of it, Dan. Even if I am nuts enough to even think of going over there, I damn well can’t do it in a week. Working back in the wilds of Africa is like another world. Christ, you can’t even get in the river over there without having every kind of parasite and worm you ever heard of, and haven’t heard of, crawling up your ass. I don’t know, old friend. I think for once, you have come up with something even I don’t want to get involved with.

Briggs, I’ll make it worth your time. I will sign over to you twenty percent of the shares for the pharmaceutical company as payment, plus all the expenses, and a damn good bonus payment for yourself when you get back, whether you succeed or fail. I’ll also make a very generous package up for each man on your team. Will you think about it?

Christ, I just don’t know, Dan. Where am I going to find the men I would want in one week? I tell you what—let me have a few drinks over it tonight, and make a few calls. I really don’t think I want this one, Dan, but I’ll let you know my answer tomorrow morning. Is that fair enough?

Fair enough. By the way, that twenty percent shares is worth fifteen million dollars on today’s NASDAQ quote. After all, when you finally marry my daughter, I don’t want her marrying beneath her.

You old bastard. Don’t try and bribe me at this late stage. I’ll see you in the morning.

Briggs took the elevator down and flagged a taxi. He needed to have a drink, and he thought the best place to go was to his old friend Max’s place. It was just around the corner from the apartment he was staying in.

Briggs never spent any real time in Africa, and did not relish the idea of beginning to do so at this stage of his life. The last time he had been in Africa was when he had been a part of a special paramilitary group that deployed in the Sixties to link up with Mike Hore’s commandos in trying to rescue some Embassy hostages in Stanleyville. That was a long time ago, and a lot of water flowed under the bridge since those days.

CHAPTER 2

Briggs woke up at six o’clock in the morning, expecting to hear B the pounding surf of the beach down the face of the cliff of his home in Opana. Instead, he was hearing the sound of cars and blaring horns, and then remembered he was in that mother of all cities, New York. He spent a quiet evening at his friend’s restaurant the evening before, and then tried to call Camille, but she did not answer her phone. Briggs figured she was still out of town on her business trip to Atlanta.

Now, a new day was already here, and Briggs had to let Dan know if he was going to take on the project in some backward area of Africa.

He got up, took a cold shower, and put on a pot of coffee to help wake him up. The phone rang. Briggs glanced at his watch, wondering who would be calling this early in the morning.

Hello, Chester here!

Briggs, good morning. This is Dan, and I wondered if you wanted to have breakfast with me this morning? I am on my way into the city, and could swing by and pick you up. I am still out on Long Island, so it is going to take the driver an hour or so to get to the apartment.

Sure, I’m just fixing to have my first cup of coffee. I can be ready in an hour. I’ll be outside waiting for you. Have you heard from Camille? I tried to call her last night, but guess she is still in Atlanta.

No, I didn’t hear from Camille, but I don’t think she was planning on returning until tonight, or in the morning.

Okay, see you shortly. Briggs hung up and thought that Dan must be anxious to learn if he was going to take on the Africa project. He normally did not come into the city this early because of the traffic.

Pouring another cup of coffee, he went out onto the veranda overlooking the city and lit his first cigarette of the day. He contemplated what taking on the project for Dan would mean.

He would have to try and find good men for helping him. Where they would be going was still a very uncivilized area of the world, and he doubted there was any scheduled airline flying into the area.

He would have to acquire the equipment and weapons they would need, and get it all delivered into Zaire. That should not be a difficult problem because if you had the money, anyone could be bought in most of Africa.

Dan mentioned that he was going to establish a cover company in Kinshasa to serve as a place for Briggs and his people to work. So that would solve work space and a place to establish a operational base.

Communications would have to be planned and transportation across the border in Angola would need to be arranged. It was going to cost a lot of money to do it the right way. But Briggs knew that Dan had the money, so that was not really a consideration.

The only real consideration was did he want to get involved with another one of Dan’s quirky special projects. They usually meant one hell of a lot of problems for Briggs. He had gotten wounded in two of those little projects of Dan’s, and he figured that his luck must be getting on the thresh line. Still, twenty percent of Dan’s new company would at last put him into a position, money wise, that would make him independent of ever having to do those special projects again. It was something to think about. He put the cigarette out and went inside to get dressed to meet Dan for breakfast.

Briggs, you look like you got your rest last night, said Dan, as Briggs got into the back of Dan’s old Bentley. Old man Garcia was still Dan’s driver. Christ, it has to be at least ten years, thought Briggs.

Well, I didn’t sleep that well. I don’t enjoy the noise of New York anymore. I’m used to hearing those Pacific high rolling waves wake me up in the mornings. Where are we going to eat? I am starved.

We’re meeting an old friend of mine over at the UN for breakfast. We are going to their VIP dining room up on the roof of the headquarters. This is a man I have known for a good many years, and I think you will like him. He’s Austrian, and has been assigned to the New York UN headquarters for two years now. Before that, he was in Geneva.

Have you given any serious thought to my proposition? I’m not rushing you, but I thought you might have given it some thought last night.

I did give it some thought, replied Briggs. But I have not made up my mind yet. I have some more questions that I want to ask you before I decide. How did you even manage to get your people into Angola anyway? Christ, there has been a war going on there for years. It has got to be dangerous as shit down there.

It is dangerous, said Dan, and almost impossible to get into the country anymore. We used the usual tried and true method, bribery. That is why I want you to put the best team together that money will buy. It is not going to be easy, and I won’t try and kid you on that. Besides, you know the kind of problems that will be faced in Angola as well as I do.

Does this fellow we are having breakfast with have anything to do with this? replied Briggs.

"You will find that out very shortly. Ah, there is the visitors’ entrance. Garcia, drop us off here. We will be about two hours. Don’t

go far. I’ll ring your beeper from my portable when we are ready to leave, and you can then bring the car back to where you drop us."

A security guard checked their names off the visitors’ list he had, and allowed them to enter the special elevator that would take them to the controlled top floor of the Headquarters building. The VIP dining room was in an impressive glassed in small rooftop building, with a sweeping view of Manhattan. Dan saw his friend at a table in the corner of the busy dining room, and steered himself and Briggs toward him.

Hans, how good it is to see you again. How is your wife and children?

Dan, good morning. It is good to see you also. Gerti and the boys are doing well, although they have gone to Salzburg for the summer months. It is much cooler there, unlike New York.

Yes, it does get uncomfortable here during the summer, and also during the winter, which does not leave one much time to enjoy the city, does it? Hans, I would like to introduce a very close friend of mine, Briggs Chester. He is the man I mentioned to you two days ago when you and I talked on the telephone. Have you already ordered?

No, I waited for you. It is very good to meet you, Mr. Chester. Dan said many fine things about you. When did you arrive?

Good to meet you also, Herr Renker. I got in yesterday afternoon.

And you live in Hawaii? This must be quite a change for you.

It is a change, but I have spent a great amount of time here, off and on, over the years.

Well, I have only been here for two years, and have two more to go before I will return to Geneva. I have to admit that I do miss Geneva, but New York City does have its interesting side also, replied Hans.

Now, gentlemen, shall we order some food? This restaurant is very international, and one can find just about anything you want, from just about any country in the world. I suspect that it does become a complex operation for their kitchen personnel. Here, may I pour you both coffee?

After the coffee, they decided to order the German style breakfast that Hans Renker ordered. Breakfast was thin slices of dried ham and cheeses on a small wooden carving board, along with a soft-boiled egg served in an eggcup and some of the crusty rolls you normally find in France or Germany. Briggs thought it was good, but probably would never replace fried eggs and good smoked ham with red-eye gravy over grits.

Hans, I have told Briggs only the very basics of the situation you and I talked about. I thought that I would let you tell him the story you told me, after I contacted you on those now missing WHO research projects, Alpha and Beta. Why don’t you start from the very beginning. Briggs, I want you to just have some patience during this story, and not start asking questions, because it will take some time. Okay, Hans, it is your story.

Well, Mr. Chester, the real beginning of this story began back during the historical times of the old Roman Empire. I don’t know how well you remember your history, but the Roman Empire, with Rome as its center, was very advanced in most things back then, outside of liking to be entertained by pitting the Christians against the lions in an arena. They controlled most of the world as it was known in those times. However, they also became a very loose living society, having great, as we would call it today, orgies with mass participation. Everyone was sleeping with everyone. Inner breeding was common, and the sexual revolution had arrived. Partners were mixed and many. The most common theory that sociologists and archeologists came up with was that the empire and its people were wiped out by some type of disease that spread throughout the center of the empire. Whether this disease was a one-time, rapid spreading disease that wiped out the whole population, or whether it built up and spread slowly, I really don’t know. Anyway, the total population was destroyed, and thus ended one of the greatest civilizations that have ever been known—the Roman Empire. The same thing seemed to have brought down the Greek Empire as well. Things never returned to the greatness that was there before, and civilization developed at a much slower pace after that. More coffee anyone?

Briggs accepted another cup, wishing he could have a cigarette. The story was old, and he was wondering how this was going to tie in with Dan’s present age problems.

So, history continued to advance until the Nazis transported the world back to a dark age again. As you are aware, the Nazis conducted human experiments in mass so-called scientific research during the war. As they had no shortage of human victims to use, this research covered a whole variety of projects dealing with everything from survival in extreme cold environments to developing a so called super human race. Hans drank some of his coffee before continuing

They also infected their victims with every known or imagined disease they could come up with. They, at the time, were trying to figure out ways to cure those diseases with the different chemical drugs the Nazi research system was trying to develop. This, of course, was intended to only help the German race, and not the rest of the world, which they considered less than human in a lot of cases, such as the Jews, the mentally ill, and others with physical defects.

They found in some of their research that they had actually created a disease at one of their camps that destroyed every victim they infected with the drug they had been testing, and could not reverse the effects of what they had created, as much as they tried, with more proven drugs.

This particular camp was one that was holding mostly prostitutes and homosexuals that they had rounded up in some of the countries they occupied. Those were the victims that became infected with the research drug.

"They then sent a sample of the drug to one of their research facilities that were using Jews as the test base, but they found that the

Jews did not become infected with the drug. This caused a lot of excitement within their community, as you can imagine."

One of the things it did do, as a side benefit to the Nazi propaganda machine, was give them fuel for the old propaganda rhetoric that Hitler had been saying for years, that the outside world, with their loose lifestyle of whores and queers, was what was wrong with the world, and that Socialism would eliminate that style of living forever.

The scientists were ordered to continue their research with other types of concentration camp races to try and further pin down the new disease. They even tried it on some German military prisoners who were in trouble for deserting, having sex with non-Germans, or other trivial things. They again failed to create the disease in those victims, and they selected a brand new group of prostitutes and homosexuals that were in a camp in Italy, that their Italian allies made available for testing. These people came down with the disease within three months of being administered the drug. Hans waved the waiter over and ordered another pot of coffee. After drinking some water, he continued.

At that time, Hitler became intrigued with the project, because he was very much into mysticism and old ancient history. He compared this drug and the people it affected to what his own pet theory was—that the Roman Empire was destroyed from within by loose living and morals. He had the entire project classified as secret, and called the project ‘Roman Empire’ and had a special code word assigned to the project, which was ‘HIV’.

The project was given new funding and an unlimited supply of the people the scientists thought were susceptible to this new disease. The thing Hitler now wanted to find out was how this disease could be spread to other people who were not normally living the loose life the prostitutes and homosexuals did.

He also had them experiment to see if the people who acquired the disease could spread it through contact with other people, both of their own kind, and so-called straight people. They found that it could be spread by sexual contact with other people, whether they were other prostitutes and homosexuals or straight people. They had reached that particular phase of their experiments when the war ended.

The primary doctor who was in charge of the project managed to escape from Germany. He carried with him all of the research documentation that he accumulated, along with the formulas of the different test drugs they had created and some of the samples.

It is assumed that he escaped through the Vatican pipeline, and reached Africa, where the Portuguese assisted the many German war criminals that had managed to reach there. This doctor was called Klaus Detris, and he finally wound up in what is today Angola. He is still alive and living down there someplace.

Hans, how on earth do you know all of this? asked Briggs.

I came across an old man back in Vienna five or six years ago, who had been a scientist on the project and was an aide to this Klaus Detris. He kept a detailed dairy of all the events concerning this particular project. I met him through a friend who was a reporter and was thinking of doing a story on the old man until his editor learned what the story was about and forbid him to write it.

You have to realize that among some of the old Austrians, there is still fear that some of their own participation with the Nazi war effort during the war will come to light. They all protect each other. Don’t forget what even one of our past presidents, Kurt Waldham, is rumored to have done for the Nazi party during the war. This self protection runs very deep among the old timers.

So, my friend introduced me to the old doctor, and he let me take notes as he told the story you just heard. Fascinating, huh?

Fascinating is not the word. What happened to this Klaus Detris? asked Briggs.

That is the next part of the story. Two years ago, just before I left Geneva for assignment to New York City, I was responsible for funds and manpower assigned to Africa. I did travel a lot down there checking up on the different UN sponsored programs that were underway.

While getting ready for a trip I had planned to Angola, I was looking at some old files and came across a project that had been terminated probably ten years earlier. Yet, there was still funding going into the project each year. The project was called ‘Alpha’, and had been located close to a town called ‘Huambo’, which is almost in the center of Angola.

When the project had been closed down, all references to it was deleted. I was puzzled that the name of the project still appeared in the computer database that I had access to showing funding each fiscal year. I started checking into it, but got stonewalled by an office over at the World Health Organization in Geneva. The man I finally got in to talk to said that it had been an administrative error, and that there was no project ‘Alpha’ any longer—that the project had been terminated ten years earlier. When I insisted that funding was still being channeled to a project called ‘Alpha’, he said that I should just forget it, and that he would insure the entries for this old project were deleted from the databases.

Well, I still thought that it was very poor administration that would allow something like that to happen, and I was wondering where all of the money during those past ten years ended up, if the project was no longer active.

A couple of days later, I went back into the database, and sure enough, there was not any information on a project called ‘Alpha’ in the computer. It just disappeared. I told my director about it, but he told me to just forget it, as the WHO had obviously corrected the records. I had completely forgotten all of it, until Dan called me a week or so ago and asked me to try and find out about some project called ‘Alpha’ and ‘Beta’, which brought it all back to me. Briggs was now interested, regardless of his not being sure he wanted to take on the project.

Dan suggested that they all go back to his office for further discussions, as the dining room personnel were trying to clear all of the tables to get set up for lunch. Dan called his driver’s beeper, and they went to the elevator and down to the street.

As much as Briggs tried to resist, he was hooked, and he knew that Dan had figured out the hook size and bait to dangle. He had chosen well, because Briggs knew he now had to help unravel this story.

CHAPTER 3

Dan told his secretary to hold all of his calls and asked her to J^ bring in coffee. Briggs and Hans Renker were sitting at the large round table in Dan’s office waiting for him to join them.

"Briggs, you will remember that Hans said the German scientist, Klaus Detris, was still alive and living in Angola? What he did not tell you, and even he was not aware of it, is that this Klaus Detris was the

man in charge of the Project Alpha facility until it closed ten years ago "

I managed to find this out by chance when talking to a contact of mine in Kinshasa who sells medical equipment and materials throughout West Africa.

He was awarded a contract in 1954 for supplying medical supplies to a World Health Organization facility that was located in a village in Angola. That was when my contact met a middle-aged German Doctor named Klaus Detris, who represented himself as the managing director of the facility.

This man indicated to my contact that his facility was doing research into tropical diseases under the sponsorship of the United Nations. He continued to supply that facility until ten years ago when Klaus Detris informed him that they were closing the facility and would no longer require medical supplies. My contact had no further dealings with Klaus Detris, but did see him from a distance about one year ago on a business trip to Luanda, Angola. And that, old friend, is where you come in.

Briggs could already see that they would have to travel to Kinshasa, Luanda, and to the remote village, Huambo, to start trying to track down the kind of information he knew that Dan was going to want.

Tell me, Mr. Renker, can you broker an introduction to someone at the UN office down in Kinshasa? I don’t mean the WHO office, but the regular UN office. It has become apparent to me that the people in WHO are not going to be very helpful, and probably would try and throw stumbling blocks into our search.

Yes, of course. I can arrange for you to meet my counterpart down there, and I assure you, he will help you in any way he can, as long as it does not cause any problems for the United Nations.

Briggs, the company I am having established for you in Kinshasa might well blend into your having commercial contacts with the UN. You will be the representative for my hospital design and fabrication company, which will be chartered to try and sell fully equipped hospitals and clinics in Africa. That will also serve as a reason for your going to Angola, as you try and sell hospitals there.

Dan, let’s go over each point that you want me to try and accomplish over there, said Briggs.

Okay, I guess you do need that, don’t you? The first thing you need to accomplish is getting to that village named Huambo and try to recover that document the village elder had shown my research director. While there, you should see if you could get a better description of the people who killed my man and the old village headman.

I think it also would be helpful if you could try and locate anyone in the village who was a participant in the Project Alpha research. If you are able to find such a person, try to get an idea of what went on at the research center.

To help you with that, I have been in touch with one of my Agency contacts, and have convinced them to loan us a Bio-Chemist officer to form up your team. This person will be an expert in what would normally be done in such a facility, and on the kinds of equipment that would be required.

Now, get that look off your face. This scientist will also be well trained in that type of ground operations, and will also participate as a regular part of your team. They will be under the cover of your company and will be payrolled by you for the duration of the operation.

Gee, thanks, Dan. I suppose this person will also be reporting back to the Agency on everything! I assume that they will follow orders—my orders, on the operation?

You are the man in charge, Briggs. No question about that. But believe me, this person will be extremely helpful to you in this operation, because you just don’t know anything about bio-chemistry. That is going to be an important aspect of this whole operation.

Now, the next thing you need to do is get back over to Luanda and track down Klaus Detris. You will have to be careful in tracking down this man because he most likely has bought protection from the Angolan Government. I don’t want to even think of how I would get all of you out of a Angolan jail.

From what I remember of jails and prisons over there, I damn well don’t want you having to get us out of there, either. Okay, let,s say we do find this Klaus Detris. What do we do with him when we find him? asked Briggs.

Well, he is now an old man, so don’t go causing him to have a heart attack before you get some information from him. According to what my research director told me before he was killed, the old village elder told him that there had been many young doctors over the years working there, and that they all had been like Dr. Klaus Detris.

I am not sure what they meant, but I guess it is possible that to the natives, the other people might have also been German. They most likely spoke in German and the village elder might have recognized that. Try and get a list of names of those Doctors and where they now work or live. You will have to track them all down.

See if you can get some information from Detris on the sister project, Beta. All we know at this point is that it was somewhere in Southern India. We need to see if that project has also closed up or maybe is still in operation. Any details on that will be helpful. Hans did not have access to any of the materials on Beta that he did on Alpha.

The final thing that we have to assume, because of the continuation of funding all of the past ten years, is that this project is still in operation someplace in the world. We have to find out where. I don’t know if Klaus Detris will even know the answer to that one. They may have that project so compartmented, that when it was closed in Africa, they completely severed all connections with Detris. Maybe you will come up with some leads during all of this exercise. Think that will keep you busy for a few months?

For Christ’s sake, Dan. I thought you only wanted me to recover that book! You never mentioned that you were going to have us running over half the world. Why is this so important?

I’ll tell you why! AIDS is spreading like wildfire, and the company that comes up with a cure is going to not only become very rich, they will also become the most recognizable pharmaceutical company in the world. And that, my boy, will make your twenty percent of the company worth a fortune.

Plus, it pisses me off that a group under the auspices of the United Nations would sanction, even fund, such a project. I want to know why they are doing it, and I want you to terminate the project right now. This goddamned disease could affect all of us if it is not stopped. That answers your question?

Yes, I guess it does. What kind of budget do I have to work with?

As much as it takes. Do you have any idea where you are going to get your team from?

I’ve been kicking it around in my mind. I think I am going to send for Tex Bennet, from the Philippines, to take charge of the ground activity. You remember him, the old Gunny that we used in that Philippine operation? He told me that if I ever needed him, to just send a ticket and money, and he would be available. I know of a team of ex-Seals and Delta personnel, who started their own thing and work out of Little Creek, Virginia. I am going to try and get in touch with them today. If they are still in existence, I will go down to Norfolk and talk to them tomorrow. When do I meet this so called ‘scientist’ the agency is shoving off on you?

After you get the rest of your team together, we’ll bring everyone together for a orientation. I think we’ll do it at my estate out in the Hamptons. It is quiet, and there is plenty of room. I guess you are going to be busy for the next few days lining up those people, and coming up with your equipment listing. Why don’t we try and have everything ready for the meeting on Saturday. It is only Tuesday, so that should give you the time you need.

No, let,s make it the following Tuesday. I have to first get in touch with the Gunny, arrange for a ticket and advance of pay to him, and then get him all the way back here.

Okay, next Tuesday it is, but try and have it organized to the point that all of you can be in Kinshasa by that Saturday. In this envelope here is an open-ended credit card that you can use for expenses, as well as cash withdraws from a bank. There is also fifty thousand dollars in cash to get you started. I am in the process of setting you up with an account on a bank in Geneva to handle future funding. The company being set up in Kinshasa will be funded from another account in Geneva, and you can set up your cover accounts through one of their sister banks down in Kinshasa. I think that covers everything we can do right now.

Hans, when will you have a letter of introduction to your counterpart at the UN office in Kinshasa available for Briggs?

I’ll have it done by Friday, and will hand carry it over here for you. I’ll also call him on the telephone and alert him that Briggs is coming.

Okay, Briggs. I’ve got another meeting that I am already late for, so why don’t you call me tonight and let me know how things go this afternoon. I suspect you will be busy tonight if Camille returns, so I won’t suggest dinner, but will plan on getting together with you tomorrow night, if you are not down in Norfolk. Hans, again, thanks for your help and all of the information you have shared with me. I know you share my concern over this thing, if it is all true, and want to stop it. I’ll wait to hear from you on Friday. Okay, Briggs. Talk to you tonight. Tell my daughter I send my love.

Briggs and Hans Renker walked to the elevator and made small talk to the street where they parted company. Briggs took a taxi back to the apartment and went up to get started on putting the operation down on paper. After warming the morning coffee up, he took a pad of paper along with his coffee out onto the patio. He started making up his operational plan, before he forgot all of the things he had learned that morning from both Dan and Hans. Before he realized it, he saw it was almost one o’clock in the afternoon. He decided to walk up to Max’s place again for lunch and a cold beer, since it was just up the street.

Briggs, here you are again. My god, twice in twenty-four hours, I can’t believe it. Mama will be upset if I don’t tell her you are downstairs here. Come, sit at this table, and I will get you a cold beer while I call her to come down, said Max.

Briggs had known old Max for many years, and had been eating in his small restaurant for just as long. Max’s wife, whom everyone calls Mama, had taken a liking to Briggs, and felt he needed a good wife to take care of him.

Max was coming back with a cold beer and glass, that he put in front of Briggs, and said that he would now call Mama upstairs.

They owned the small building and lived above their restaurant. They have seen their little neighborhood go through all of the changes over the past forty years without losing their same customers. The old customers kept coming back, as well as the new ones.

Briggs, there you are. I was really mad at you last night when Max told me you were here for dinner, and did not come upstairs to see me, said Mama, as she grabbed Briggs and hugged him. So, Mr. Bigshot, you now live out on that Island and never think of us anymore, huh?

No, Mama, I think of you, especially when I remember all of your good cooking. It was too late last night to bother you, and that is why I came back for lunch today. Are you going to eat with me?

Yes, but first I am going into the kitchen to make sure that crazy cook that Max hired fixes you something really good. He only knows how to fix one thing, and that is bad food. You just drink your beer and talk to Max while I go to the kitchen. I will be back out shortly. Max, you sit here and talk to Briggs. Ask him where that girl, Camille is and why she has not married Briggs yet. God, same old Mama, thought Briggs. She never changes. He was still not sure if Camille was the right woman for him.

Max, what has been going on in the neighborhood? I see a lot of new stores going up. Has everyone won the lottery?

No, Briggs. A lot of young people are starting to come back here now that living in an old brownstone has become the yuppie thing to do. Of course, they spend more money on fixing them up then they are worth, but it seems to be the popular thing to do. I see a lot of new faces coming into the restaurant, but they want all this fancy stuff today, and worry about fat. I tell them that if they don’t like what I have, and the way I fix it, to find another place to eat. I will not start changing things after all these years. What about you, Briggs? You now spending most of your time out there in Hawaii?

Well, I am still on the road a lot for Dan Mallory, Max, but my home is out there now. I guess I do try and spend most of my time there. Camille comes out to visit me often, but we still have not decided to make it permanent yet. She still likes her work, and I guess I do mine. In fact, that is what I am doing back here now.

Dan has a job he wants me to do, and I am just trying to get it organized. Camille has been down in Atlanta on a business trip, but hopefully, will get back tonight. I guarantee that she and I will get over here for either a lunch or dinner before I leave.

Ah, there is the best cook you have ever had in this place, Max. Mama was directing the cook toward the table with a tray of food steaming hot.

Briggs, I fixed your favorite, veal and eggplant with a side dish of my pasta. I’ll go get a loaf of that crusty bread you like, and then we can eat. Max, go get Briggs another beer. Max shrugged and went to get a fresh beer. There was no arguing with Mama. It was as good as always. As usual, Briggs ate too much for a lunch, but Mama kept pushing more pasta toward him.

Mama, I’m stuffed, and I have a lot of work to do this afternoon. It was excellent, as always. No dessert for me, thank you. I was telling Max that Camille gets back tonight, and we will be over for either a lunch or dinner before I leave. I want to make sure you and Max eat with us.

Oh, sure. That’s what you always tell me, but you never bring her here. I think she is afraid to see me, because she knows that I will give her hell for not marrying you.

Now, you know that is not true. Anyway, thanks for the lunch, but I have got to go get busy. Max, it was good. Give me the check…

Check, you don’t have a check here, Briggs. Just go do your work and make sure you bring Camille back. We are both happy to see you. Briggs hugged Mama, and went back to his apartment.

He needed to finish up the operational plan, and then start making the calls to Tex and to the fellows down at Little Creek. Tuesday

would arrive soon enough, and he wanted everyone to have all their shots updated—Angola was a tough place on your health, and it was better to be over protected there.

CHAPTER 4

Hello, Tex? This is Briggs Chester! Did I wake you?

Briggs? Hell yes you woke me. What in hell time do you think it is? Christ, it’s not even light outside yet. How you doing?

"I’m fine, Gunny. Sorry to have called so early. But I’m in New York right now, and I wanted to offer you a job that might take us a month, it might take us two. The money will be excellent, and I want you to head up a team I hope to pull together over the next couple