The Lucifer Sanction (4 page)

Dal flipped out a fourth finger, followed by, “Your
people – they were involved with the Eldridge? Now you’re
saying you’ve sent two guys someplace in another time, in
another universe? Let’s cut to the chase here. What’s the
specific assignment your guys were sent on?”
“In due time Agent Dallas. You have heard of the
Black Death, the plague of the 14th century? The percentile
reduction in the world’s population in the mid14th century
due to the bubonic plague was between twenty-five and
fifty percent of the population. That is around two hundred
million people. To this very day it continues to kill about
three thousand people annually.
Long ago our scientists decoded the genome of
the bubonic bacterium known as Black Death. Our planet
cannot support its burgeoning population. We have already
reduced the planet’s population on one occasion. Our
intervention is not a simple matter of black or white, we
must be cruel to be kind. We quite simply cannot supply
sufficient food for 200,000 humans that are added to this
planet each day.”
Blake raised an objecting hand. “You mean to tell
me your people had something to do with what occurred in
the 14th century? That somehow you sent something back
there, something that caused the plague?”
“But of course, that was the specific assignment.”
“And these two guys,” Blake said, scratching at his
chin, “they’re still back there?”
“Now we get to the bad news,” Danzig said as
he flicked through his files, intentionally avoiding eye
contact.
“Bad news,” Blake queried. “You mean to say all of
that was the good stuff?”

Dal stood by the slightly open window and looked
down at the grinding morning traffic on Wilshire. He lit
up a Marlboro and lifted his eyes to the cloudless sky,
recalling similar days, days spent in the ocean off Santa
Monica pier.

Carson Dallas came close to engraving his name in
the annals of American sport when in 1990 he competed
in the national surfing championship. Surfing in California
exploded in the 1980s and the state became part of the
World Pro Tour schedule. Dal saw the potential and, as
an athletic ‘twenty something’ year old, he immersed
himself fully in the California Surfrider foundation which
had launched in 1984. Unfortunately, Californian surfers
such as Brand Gerlach, Tom Curren and Christian Fletcher
were at the pinnacle of the surfing world, leaving Carson
Dallas to paddle into surfing oblivion. He’d often take an
old long-board out past the pier to float about, thinking of
better times, thinking of how it could have been.

Together with Drew Blake, Dal shared the record
within the American Interpol Division for the most kills.
Within the division they were referred to as the ‘killingest
team,’ not a title to be proud of but certainly one that earned
the team the highest respect. Now-a-days he was just an
average surfer, but with a twist – he’d accepted the element
of fortune found in almost every sport. He’d also accepted
the types of waves nature would ‘deal him’ on any given
day, the competition format, the human judging. They each
played their part. For Dal, there would always be room for
speculation – time to speculate on excellent surfers who’d
never won a title – or of those who should have won more
- had an eternity to think about it.

As Danzig gathered up his briefing papers, he
gestured toward Dal, “Our Swiss facility developed
genetic structure of a bacterium. Our environmental mathematicians estimate that if the population of the 14th
century was allowed to go unculled, by the year 2000 the
planet wouldn’t be able to sustain the growth, unless...”
He paused; aware he again had one hundred percent of the
group’s attention. “Libra transported Dominic Moreau to
Asia in the mid-13th century. He released a bacterium into
the Yangtze. Today, that bacterium is known as the bubonic
plague. Its introduction directly resulted in the culling of
the planet’s occupants, which resulted in a far lower world
population today.

“We returned Moreau to Europe in 1347. He stayed
longer than intended and saw the results of the virus. The
Yersinia pestis bacterium spread from China at an amazing
rate. Unfortunately Moreau saw the carnage and tried
terminating the spread.”

Dominic Moreau
Calais, France
October 21, 1347
6.08 A: M
Gulls circled the mainsail of the Genoese trader
as the canvas hung lifelessly from the mizzenmast. Dom
Moreau allowed his eyes to track the gulls as they avoided
swooping onto the deck in their familiar search for scraps
- the great white scavengers were tentative, as though an
inner sense alerted them of the death ship.
Two large seamen, each wearing masks, blocked
anyone from boarding.
Moreau grinned and thought -
dead men
.
Their peculiar behavior held his interest as he leaned
back and reflected on the ship moored just thirty feet away
– noticed each of the men as they let out an occasional
cough. He was a shadowy figure – observing the scene.
More coughing and he again thought,
so very dead.
The gulls sensed a peculiarity and instinctively
flew off in search of safer places to satisfy their hunger.
Five minutes later the wharf was a hive of activity as
masked civilians, accompanied by white jacketed medical
personnel, boarded the Italian ship. Cart loads of the dead
awaited the arrival of lime carts. Minutes later three masked
men hastened to shovel the contents onto the puss infected
corpses - a vain attempt to isolate the contagion.
The diseased sailors shared a common malady –
suspicious swellings in the groin and armpit areas and black
blotches and lesions flowing freely with puss and blood.
Moreau caught a glance from one of the crewmen
limping on by. The man stopped, aware of the figure
lurking in the shadows. He staggered, leaned into a wall
and coughed furiously into his free hand, his face adopting
a duplicitous expression as he stared blurry eyed at the spit
tainted blood spraying from his mouth.
Moreau turned away and instinctively covered his
face. The pneumonic plague spread directly from man to
man just like the common cold, and this man’s breath and
sputum would certainly add to the spread of the bacilli. The
man had less than three days before the Black Death would
claim him.
Moreau pulled away as the man broke into a more
intense burst of coughing. The sailor would shortly begin
to sweat heavily, spit more blood, and then he would die.
Moreau thought,
might as well just crawl onto the cart, lay
by the other guys, and get the lime shoveled onto you.

Another seaman oblivious to his ailment relieved
himself against a wall, his bloody urine forming a red
stream.

When the cart was stacked with corpses sparingly
covered with lime, a strange silence befell the dock. A
priest vigilantly issued last rights; his eyes raised to God,
avoiding the endless flow of corpses, his hand making jerky
never-ending blessing movements - one blessing merging
into the next.

From the corner of his eye, Moreau caught a glimpse
of a large black rat darting from the alley, a furtive dash
toward the wooden plank leading on board.

Moreau’s eyes widened and the consequence of
his visit to China ripped at his chest, but it was too late
for redemption. He thought,
I’ve gotta end it right here,
they’ve done enough - those goddamn physicists at Libra.

He conjured up images of the Zurich facility, of the
transfer chamber. Thought of the wardrobe room with its
range of medieval attire and of the promise made – “we’ll
bring you home safely, bring you back to 2015.”

He peered about the dock, took the small disc from
his tunic and checked the coordinates:
Fifty degrees, fifty
six minutes twenty three inches east.
He thought
come on
Denis. Where the hell are you, man? Campion, you’ve
gotta be here.

Two hours later Dom Moreau shrugged, held his
hands out at shoulder level and felt the light drizzle. To this
point he’d kept impatience at bay, but now his frustration
was beginning to spill over. Campion had missed the
rendezvous and it was now time for Moreau to make his
way out of Calais.

The salty spray ripped into his face as the breeze
kicked up. He turned away from the dock, moved along
an alley stepping over maggot riddled corpses and rats
eating at what little flesh hadn’t already been ripped away
by snarling dogs. He cussed deliriously and shivered in
the cold and damp that had quickly transformed the warm
Calais sunrise into a stinking mortuary.

Calais, France
October 21, 1347
6.47 A: M

A nervous horse faithfully stood by its deceased
owner as two massive mongrels gnawed on what remained
of the man’s thigh, his genital area already consumed. One
of the beasts gave Moreau a moment’s thought, a look that
suggested this intruder could be fresh meat.

Moreau pulled his sword, beat it against the wall and
was surprised to see the dogs ignore his threat; apparently
hunger took precedence over fear. He moved cautiously, his
back to the wall, skirting the dogs, sword on the ready. The
smaller of the pair turned, growled, with its teeth locked
onto a chunk of the man’s inner thigh and unprepared to
relinquish its pound of flesh. The other, the larger of the
two, snarled at the new shadowy figure. Moreau shortened
his footsteps. Stopped. The larger dog took five bounds
and launched itself at Moreau. The shadowy figure made a
swift thrust with his broadsword, catching the beast midriff,
eviscerating it before its body touched down.
Moreau
pressed himself hard against the wall and stared as three
more large hounds sprinted toward him. He placed one
boot beneath the intestines of the first attacker, flicked the
entrails into the air toward the approaching pack and they
stopped dead and began feasting.

Dom Moreau glanced at the horse, could see it
was ragged but still saddled. He skirted the blood soaked
hounds and cautiously mounted the steed. He rode through a
hellish landscape on his journey from Calais to Paris. From
time to time the sound of wailing women broke the silence
as family members carried fresh bodies from shacks, and
carts continued a ceaseless shuttle service, feeding open
trenches as the body count quickly outnumbered those able
to load the carts.

He rode through the night, despair eating at him
with each village he passed. The morning light revealed
new piles of corpses that had been dragged from their
homes and laid in doorways alongside trash, the stench
creating an inescapable taste in his mouth and placing a
higher appreciation on the worthiness of mouthwash. For
a nanosecond he wished for anything to lessen the taste of
death. He covered his mouth, shielding himself from the
stench as bodies lay putrid along each road he traveled,
carcasses awaiting their turn to be carried to graveyards
or dumped into massive unmarked pits, the less fortunate
being devoured by animals, dogs once owned by the very
people on whom they fed.

He saw weeping families dumping relatives as
others with sufficient strength shoveled dirt and beat off
dogs scrapping among themselves and dragging corpses
from too shallow graves, one-time pets had become rabid
wolves hastily devouring the dead.

On arrival in Paris he thought
this has to be the
equivalent to a thermonuclear war for these people. What
the hell has Libra done here?

Faced on one hand with the megalomania of
possessing the post-experimental Lucifer ampoules, and
the stupefying effect of Yersinia pestis, he considered the
arrogance of the Libra scientists, Danzig, Bosch, Schroeder,
and even the articulate La Blanc.

His decision was a clear one. His vindication was to
stop the spread. He thought
I need to kill off the rats. I’ve
gotta burn ‘em – destroy their breeding grounds.

The thought repeated over and over, until he dismissed it as lunacy. He looked about at the Parisians living
in filthy, unsanitary, crowded dwellings and attempted to
justify setting fire to the hovels. But even so, torching the
dwellings still wouldn’t eliminate the open sewers that
were rife with epidemic diseases, rife with rodents feasting
on body parts torn from rotting corpses. It triggered nausea,
and Moreau’s gut retched as he leaned against a wall and
heaved repeatedly until his stomach ran dry of bile. He
turned toward the orange light to his left, to a group huddled
over a raging fire.

He saw it as a message from God.
Fire
, he thought,
gotta burn ‘em.
He considered the consequences.
Made his move.

American Interpol Division
Wilshire Boulevard
Los Angeles
March 22, 2015
11.18 A: M

“…knowing that flea bites passed the virus along,
and since rats at the time were the largest carriers of fleas,
Moreau needed to destroy the rodents,” Danzig said. “The
best way to kill off the rat infestation was through fire.
Consequently Moreau torched areas of Paris, wiping out at
least two hundred and thirty thousand Parisians. By 1350
the plague had reduced the population of Europe from one
hundred and twenty-five million to sixty million.”

Blake thought about that for a moment. He joined
Dal by the window, pulled two cigarettes, passed one to
Dal, tapped his own several times on the rear of the pack
and lit up each. He eyed the traffic below and kept his back
to Danzig.

“You’re saying you reduced the head count back
then - and your reason was what exactly?”
“Agent Blake, can you begin to equate the implications of a world today if we had not reduced those
numbers? We would have no food supply, no oil, no rice .
. . no wheat.”
Danzig made a shrugging gesture, put on a forced
smile. “We would be on doomsday’s doorstep if in fact we
even survived to the present time.”
Sam could feel his blood pressure rising. He
glanced at Bell then to Dal and Blake. His head made a
slight shuddering move and came to rest in his hands.
“During our Libra research,” Danzig said with an
apologetic shrug, “one of our top physicists passed away after
an infected cat sneezed on him. This unfortunate incident
triggered off immediate research to decipher the plague
genome. Our physicists began intensive comparisons of
other killer bacterium, such as water-borne gastrointestinal
pathogens and leprosy. So you see Mr. Ridkin, experiments
by one physicist that could be perceived as evil, could
ironically result in another physicist being awarded the
Nobel Prize.”
Dal took a final drag on the Marlboro, exhaled,
and followed the thin stream of smoke as it snaked its
way through the cracked window to join the Los Angeles
pollution. He ignored the glare from Sam, moved back
to the table, stubbed the butt into a Cinzano ashtray, sat,
and raised a querying eyebrow. “So basically,” Dal said,
“your guys lost control of the source and actually spread
the virus.”
“Correct, Agent Dallas. Unfortunately the best laid
plans of mice and – no pun intended. Regrettably for us and
for the world, Moreau developed a conscience.”
“Are you all fuckin’ crazy?” Blake snapped, straining to keep some self-control.
Danzig twitched. “I fully appreciate how it is
shocking to those such as you, Agent Blake. Libra has
always had a conscience – together with great foresight.”
He kept his eyes on the paperwork. Another twitch drew a
smirk from Dal. “I understand I am a guest, Mr. Ridkin,”
Danzig said with an awkward smile, “but you
are
aware of
the authority with which I am empowered. The Triumvirate
does not commit lightly to perilous undertakings. Admiral
Bates’ team categorically condoned the means by which
we are solving the food shortage problem of the world.”
Sam groaned and clapped his hands in one thunderous outburst of frustration. Blake placed his mouth
close to his boss’s ear and whispered, “I can see your
blood pressure reaching two hundred over two hundred.
I recognize the signs. Just tell the motherfucker to get this
over with.”
Danzig didn’t catch the words but certainly caught
the distaste. He raised an eyebrow at Blake, cleared his
throat and continued in a nonchalant way, “In a very short
space of time in evolutionary terms, the disease evolved to
the point where it lived in the bloodstream.”
“Is there a treatment?” Sam asked in a deflated
tone.
Danzig leaned back in his chair, thought for a few
seconds. “There is a treatment if caught very early. India
had a major outbreak during 1994. It killed nearly nine
hundred Surat residents. A woman in Suffolk, England,
died as recently as 1913.”
“What are the early symptoms?” Bellinger asked.
“Painful swelling beneath the arms and around the
groin, exhaustion, fever and chills. The lymphatic system
becomes overwhelmed, resulting in rapid blood poisoning
as bacterium spreads to the main organs.”
Bell asked, “Is it airborne or is it spread solely
through flea bites?”
“Both. It is highly contagious and results in death
within days. Although it is no longer a major health problem
in Europe, it still surfaces around the world.”
“What about the world health police,” Blake said,
“you know - the guys with their fingers on the pulse.”
Danzig turned his head, rolled his eyes. “The World
Health Organization receives in excess of three thousand
reported cases annually. Increasing globalization has
caused fear that it could re-emerge in the developed world.
In fact the bacterium’s hosts have recently reappeared in
some parts of Great Britain.”
“So where are the two guys you sent back?”
Bellinger asked.
Danzig was running thin on patience. “Denis
Campion transmitted a very weak signal informing our
people he had suffered an accident of sort, that he may have
incurred a serious infection, perhaps from the bacterium.
The transmission ceased after a matter of seconds. Our last
contact from Moreau holds little hope for Campion. He
failed to keep a pre-arranged Venice meeting with Dom.
His last reported coordinates placed him in...”
His cell phone played a tune. Danzig groaned at
the interruption, groped impatiently, got the phone from
his inside jacket pocket, flipped it open and glanced at the
caller’s name. “Excuse me,” he groaned, “I must take this
call.”
He spoke in German for several minutes.
Bellinger accompanied Blake to the window as
each seized on the opportunity to stretch their legs. They
gazed down on Wilshire Boulevard, a virtual parking lot
as commuters endured their snail’s pace journey through a
constipated city suffocating in smog.
“City of the fuckin’ angels,” Blake grumbled
gesturing at the less than inviting example of too many
people in too little space.
Bell pointed down at the antics of a panhandler
frantically washing windshields of unwilling motorists.
Before Blake could respond, Danzig finished the telephone
conversation and returned to the table.
“My associate will join us shortly. He asked that I
apologize for his delay. It appears our situation has worsened.
As ironic as it may sound, time
is
of the essence.”
“Time – am I missing something here?” Blake
asked. “I was under the impression time is something you
people have the ability to play God with.”
“You must appreciate the seriousness of the situation,” Danzig snapped defensively. “In 2000 the United
Nations estimated the population of our planet was growing
at the rate of seventy-five million people annually. In the
last few centuries the number of people living in our world
has increased many times over. In 2000 there were ten
times as many people on our planet as there were in the
18th century. CIA records in their 2006 World Factbook
show the human population is increasing in excess of two
hundred thousand daily. The 2015 records show an increase
of nearly five hundred thousand each day.” Danzig pulled
another file from his attaché case, opened it, and tapped on
the front page.
“Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle
East has increased beyond earlier expectations.” He traced
a finger down the page as he spoke, settling on one item.
“In Central and Eastern Europe there is negative population
growth. The introduction by Libra of the HIV virus kept a
lid on the southern African nations.” He smiled a cold selfindulgent grin. “It also says here,” and he swiveled the file
around to face the group. His finger coming to rest on one
item and a look of satisfaction adding a laconic touch to his
smile, “It says right here sub-replacement fertility rates will
account for negative population growth in Western Europe
and Japan. Human growth exceeds the carrying capacity of
our planet.”
Sam Ridkin snapped impatiently, “What about the
under-populated areas out there? Surely you aren’t taking
them into consideration in these statistics of yours!” He
waved an angry hand at Danzig’s file and slammed a fist on
the table. The Interpol Chief wasn’t one to lose composure.
Blake felt Dal’s eyes seek him out as Bell blushed, surprised
by Sam’s outburst.
“Please, Mr. Ridkin,” Danzig pleaded, “those areas
are sparsely inhabited because their population is so meager
they are unable to manage or sustain any kind of operative
economic system.”
Sam scowled at Blake as he caught the gaze on his
man’s face. Danzig placed the files back in their folder and
spoke directly into Sam’s eyes. “Gentlemen, the United
Nations predicts the world population will exceed nine
billion people in the year 2075. The over-population process
is accelerating at an unsustainable rate. Discounting natural
disasters we will outgrow this planet in very short time.
There will be insufficient food and too few resources if the
population explosion is left unabated. We have established
conclusively that mankind’s numbers must be forced into
decline in order to maintain parity with productivity.
There have been more people added to our planet
in the past fifty years than since the dawn of creation.
We cannot allow this growth rate to continue. We must
implement the Lucifer sanction and cull the population.”
Sam strode across the briefing room and into a small
kitchen area slightly larger than a closet. The room was had
no window and the light source came from an overhead
fluorescent tube that provided a cold glow. There was a
small laminated circular table with one chair, a microwave,
a toaster oven, a small refrigerator, a first aid cabinet and
a few cupboards that held a minimum assortment of cups
and plates. He pulled a bottle of aspirin, uncapped it, shook
four pills into his palm and poured a shot of Jim Beam.
Blake poked his head into the room and asked,
“You okay, Chief?”
There was no reply, Sam was hurting badly and
needed to take a break. Blake and Sam’s relationship was
as close as father and son; consequently Sam’s stress level
concerned Blake. He reached for a glass, took a bottle of
Perrier from the fridge, half-filled the glass and slid it across
to Sam who predictably just moved it to one side.
“I’m no genius,” Blake said, “but my gut feeling is
that we’re about to get dropped into one shit-load of trouble.
I’ve got my own thoughts about what’s ethical and what
isn’t. All this – the ethics – well, it just doesn’t pass through
my digestive system, if you know what I’m saying.”
Despite the lunacy of the situation, the diminutive
kitchen offered temporary sanctuary for them both.
Blake was tempted to say, “So what gives?” but
instead he spread his hands and said, “Do we really have to
go through with this?”
Sam shrugged, waved him off, sat down slowly and
took a long pull on the Jim Beam.
“Those guys at the Triumvirate,” Sam moaned,
“Those fuckers don’t assign us without serious consideration. Yeah – we’ve gotta to go through with whatever.”