The Fish Kill Mission

CONTENTS

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Epilogue

DEDICATION

The Fishkill Mission was written fifteen years before the attack on the

World Trade Center. It was my first novel. When I finished it, I asked several

friends and relatives, and even an agent, to review it for me. To the person,

they said it was simply too frightening, and asked me not to publish it,

for fear of giving terrorists ideas. I dug it out in 2000 to update it to reflect

the new political realities of the 1990’s, but again decided not to publish it.

My wife recently found it and encouraged me to publish it. We agreed that it is

certainly no longer something terrorists would not have already considered

(if it ever was), and might awaken some to the potential danger if we

do not prepare ourselves.

So, this novel is dedicated to my wife. She is a true partner with uncommon

common sense, whose advice, wisdom, companionship and

support have become essential to my life.

PROLOGUE

Dear Reader,

It seems hard even for me to believe now, but this story was written and copyrighted in 1986; fifteen years before the destruction of the World Trade Center. It was updated from time to time in order to reflect political changes in the world, but none since 2000.

It is amazing that our public works infrastructure has not been targeted before now by those who hate us. Since this story was written, I have been responsible for public water supplies in two communities, and it seems that no one is doing anything of real value to protect them. In 1986, I wrote:

"I believe that we are extremely vulnerable to small unit attacks by our enemies on our own soil, and nowhere more vulnerable than at our community life-support infrastructure facilities.

As the economic polarization of our world and our nation continues, it is historically mandated that we will be the object of increasing hatred and incidences of attack at ever-increasing levels of intensity.

This story may make many of you uncomfortable for a few minutes, and may even frighten a few, but not sufficiently to result in a meaningful reaction to the threat. Regrettably, our arrogance and collective ignorance of and lack of respect for the cycles of history will prevent us from making any significant move to prevent the attack until after it comes.

The attack will come, and this story basically describes how it will happen. Here’s hoping it comes to your community, and not to mine."

Obviously, I was wrong about how the attack would come. But, it did come, and it will come again. Hopefully, I will be wrong again.

CHAPTER 1

The struggle for freedom should be something more than a contest between their terrorists and our terrorists.

A Member of Congress

Greifswald

The noisy Czech-manufactured truck belched smoke and raw petrol fumes. It backed through the narrow loading door into the crumbling brown brick warehouse building in the dilapidated port sector of Greifswald, a town on the German coast, near the Polish border. Six men, all appearing to be at least thirty years of age, in brown insulated coveralls stood silently in a semi-circle in the dim light from a few dirty bulbs. They watched the grimy, greenish-brown vehicle lurch slowly into their midst in the small room, which was otherwise empty except for a stack of cardboard boxes. One of the men coughed as the room filled with the acrid exhaust fumes. As if on cue, the truck engine died with a shutter and the driver climbed out of the cab. Another man, a hulking mass in blue coveralls and a hooded blue coat, remained in the passenger seat, staring ahead, watching the loading door through which they just passed.

The dark driver appeared to be a relatively young man with straight shoulder-length black hair pulled tightly and tied in the back, but the confidence with which he moved hinted at his well-hidden maturity. He wore a brown leather jacket and turtleneck sweater, tightly fitted faded jeans and boots. He made no attempt to hide his arrogance and self-importance. The waiting men nodded to him respectfully but he ignored them as if he expected their deference. One of the men moved quickly to the rusty metal overhead door that clattered and screeched as he pulled it down and locked it.

The other men stepped away as the driver moved to the boxes, sliding one aside and kneeling beside it. He pulled a large knife from his rear pocket, opened the blade with a flick of his wrist and deftly cut the tape securing the box. He peeled back the lid and lifted out a large dull black metal cylinder resembling an oversized food tin. The cylinder had a canvas strap riveted to the top for carrying, and the lid was covered with a circle of fiberboard secured in place with heavy tape.

He looked up at the men watching him. I am Louis. Which of you are Dr. Simac and Dr. Leopold? He spoke deliberately in textbook Russian, devoid of any noticeable accent.

The oldest man in the group moved forward. You are Simac? Louis asked.

The older man nodded. I am Simac.

A younger man stepped forward. I am Leopold.

Louis stared at Leopold and glanced at the rear view mirror on the passenger side of the truck to make sure his companion had been watching the two men identify themselves. He nodded as if satisfied.

Well, Doctors. You are sure these will work as we asked?

They will work, Comrade, Simac said confidently. Of that you may be sure.

How can you be so certain, Doctor? Have you tested it?

The old man smiled. Of course. We would never leave such things to chance, or jeopardize our relationship with those you represent. We used a village in the mountains of Croatia. Of the sixty occupants, fifty-three died within four days. We think you will be very satisfied. No one suspected a toxin. It was blamed on a plague-like sickness.

Two days after his men slipped into the remote settlement and dropped a small pea-sized pellet of the toxin into the communal well, he and his team rolled into the village in vans. Simac met with the village leaders, telling them he was with the state health bureau and that some of the other communities in the region were suffering from an influenza type disease. He asked if any of their people were experiencing such problems. By that time, many of the elderly and infants were beginning to complain of headaches and nausea.

Simac and Leopold were able to set up an on-site lab to study and document the effects of their toxin on humans. At the same time, their men were able to ensure that the people of the village had no communication with the world outside. The telephone line for the single phone set in the village was cut, and any trying to leave were turned back at gun point. Anyone wishing to enter was dissuaded with stories of plague.

Simac estimated that the isolation period had to extend no longer than three days after his arrival, and he had been correct. It took only five days to wipe out the population. They quietly pulled out of the village, leaving the five or six ill survivors with the bodies of their friends and neighbors.

Simac spent his entire adult life working for the Soviets in the development of biochemical weapons. Suddenly, the U.S.S.R. collapsed and he was without a job. It seemed that every business and agency was scrambling to establish ties with Western entities. No one wanted to be associated with a man of his background. He was treated as if he had the plague.

His bitterness became rage. It did not take him long to discover that despite the lack of hostilities between Russia and the West, there remained a large market among the emerging nations for his expertise, and the potential rewards were beyond his dreams. He spent twelve months in Iraq prior to their invasion of Kuwait.

While the Saudi-Western alliance gloated over their victory, the leaders of Iraq suffered their defeat in silence, with sly grins upon their faces. Only a select group of third world leaders knew the extent to which the U.S. alliance soldiers had been exposed to a toxin developed by Simac. The Scud missiles shot down by the U.S. Patriot missiles over Saudi Arabia and Israel were loaded with the toxin, which floated down from the explosions as a fine, imperceptible mist, covering huge areas.

Prior to the arrival of the western troops, thousands of square kilometers of the Arabian Desert along the Kuwaiti and Saudi borders were sprayed with the toxin. It was designed to lay in wait until disturbed and thrown into the air by the boots of soldiers, whirling helicopter rotor blades, or the treads of speeding tanks. The firing of the six hundred oil wells across the Kuwaiti desert was intended to mask the toxin and divert attention away from the possibility of poisoning of the soil.

They knew that five to seven years later, the allied Desert Storm veterans would begin developing maladies previously unknown to medicine, and by the time they were in their forties, would begin to die agonizing deaths. The toxin would lie quietly like a time bomb in their systems, until it exploded to attack and slowly destroy the brain, liver, kidneys or other internal organs. There would be no cure.

The timing of the toxin’s attack on the soldiers was the problematic part of its development, and it was no surprise to Simac when it began its work sooner than he had intended. He read everything he could find on the Internet concerning the progress of the American soldiers’ complaints against the military and the US government. Their lawyers even provided individual case studies of those suffering from Desert Storm Syndrome. It was not as valuable as hands-on laboratory testing would have been, but it was the next best thing to it.

He was amused by the initial efforts of the military and government to deny the existence of a problem. That reflected the ingenuity of his toxin and the difficulties inherent in trying to trace it and determine its nature. He knew that they would never be able to fully determine enough about the toxin to develop a satisfactory treatment for it, much less a cure.

The payment for this service was more money than he had made all the years of his life combined. But his purpose in taking the assignment had been notoriety. He knew that with such a reputation, more money would follow. Again, he had been correct. He sought out the young Dr. Hermann Leopold and induced him to join with him as his second. Leopold was an excellent chemist who worked with Simac in the final years of the U.S.S.R..

Leopold was a widower, as was Simac. His young wife had been killed by a drug addict in St. Petersburg and he had no children. He gave credit to the West for the gift of drugs into Russian society through the glamorization given the trade in the Western music and movies shipped in to poison the young people.

He possessed the computer skills that Simac lacked, and that were necessary to bypass much tedious and unproductive lab experimentation. Computer modeling was faster, more accurate, and much more profitable. Since Iraq, they had not been without a commission and spent many months in Africa, plying their trade and perfecting new toxins. Leopold considered Simac to be a dinosaur, and knew the old man was out of ideas. He was brilliant once, but now he was finished. His creativity and passion were things of the past. Leopold knew that anything innovative accomplished by their partnership would flow from his own mind. He would leave and set up his own operation if he only possessed the contacts that Simac did. It would do him little good to put his genius to work if he could not market the products. He had to stay with Simac and try to learn as much as possible before the old man died, or until a better offer came along.

The Cubans contacted Simac on numerous occasions, offering him position, wealth, influence and unlimited research budgets if he would become a Cuban citizen and take up residency on their island. The offers from Castro became more and more lucrative, but