Final Chapter John Banner Completes His Mission

Banner must make a difficult decision.

The next day, Banner was conflicted about what to do. He couldn't tell Alisha, what he had found without revealing the reason he was there. 

He had to do something, but he didn't know what. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Why did things have to be so complicated?

Why did he ever meet Jerry Batista in the first place, why did he look on that computer? What was he hoping to find? Did he think she was just an innocent school girl surrounded by evil people? 

Banner didn't want to save the world anymore. He just wanted to go home and forget he had ever come to Afghanistan.

A couple of days later, Alisha came to Banner's room. This time, Banner decided they would not just make love, they would talk. Banner began, he said that he believed her father was a great man, and he wanted to do what he could to bring his message to the world. Dave Rush had lots of followers in America and a lot of influence with important people.

This was what she wanted to hear. She began to speak freely of her plans. She was The Voice of God. All of the recent sermons were hers. At first, John feigned shock, but then he said, “Yes, I see it now. It was you. It had to be.”

“My father is old and sick, and my brother is a fool. I had to take over.”

She told him she had a plan that would bring America to its knees. She was going to send some disciples to Cuba. Once there, they would purchase a squadron of small aircraft.

The planes would wait for the right time, timing was everything. They would wait for a hurricane. It had to be the right hurricane. The perfect hurricane. The Wind of God.

Hurricane tracking has improved by leaps and bounds in the last few years. It was now possible to chart a hurricane's path with a good degree of accuracy. It would have to be a hurricane that was large and slow moving. It would need to track up the east coast, just offshore, making landfall at several locations, bouncing on and off the land like a rock skipping across the water.

Once this hurricane formed, the planes would take off from Cuba. Each plane would carry a payload of smallpox capsules. During her time in America, Alisha had learned the ways of the internet. There is a wealth of information on the internet and bad people only too eager to share the most destructive information with anyone with a high-speed connection.

Through the internet, Alisha not only learned that smallpox was the most deadly pathogen in the world, but also how to synthesize it in in a laboratory with ingredients that could be cheaply purchased on-line.

The internet is a wonderful source for the terrorist community. All of the equipment needed can be purchased on eBay. Remarkably, none of it is on the embargo list.

There is no cure for smallpox. The planes would fly into the storm and release their cargo. The smallpox virus is quickly diminished without a host, a human carrier, but it spreads quickly and is transferred by almost any kind of contact.

Soon after an attack, the entire country would be infected. Smallpox had a death rate of 30 percent. The nations of the world, believing that smallpox had been wiped out, destroyed the stockpile of vaccine they once held.

Alisha knew that few countries administered smallpox vaccines anymore. She also knew that even in countries that still inoculated, the vaccine wore off in five years. Virtually no one on earth was immune. The entire east coast would be affected, and from there, the rest of the country would soon fall.

In the spring of 2001, Washington had ordered a simulation called Dark Winter. Dark Winter postulated an attack on the United States in which one infected person entered a shopping mall in Oklahoma City. It then plotted the spread of the disease and projected the number of casualties. 

Thirteen days after the sole infectee entered the mall, the virus had spread to twenty-five states, infected hundreds of thousands and killed one-third of them. The exercise was stopped early. No one needed to learn anything more.

What if there were twenty, a hundred, a thousand infectees? America would never recover. She would never again be a player on the world's stage. Her domination of the Middle East would end. Allah would be avenged. It was a brilliant plan. Even Banner had to admit that. Brilliant, but evil. How could he stop it?

Alisha's beauty had become marred by the ugliness of her hatred. For a moment When the light caught her at a certain angle, Banner thought he could see the twisted features of her evilness.

In the morning The Voice and his guards prepared to travel to another village. The Voice was going to deliver another rambling, incoherent sermon. Once again, America and Israel, The Big Satan and The Little Satan would be condemned. Death to America, death to Israel, would be chanted by the angry mob until their energy was spent.

One thing the Afghanis knew was how to do was demonstrate. They had been doing it for years. Tear their clothes, weep and wail, shoot their weapons in the air. Go home and rest, come back and do it all again tomorrow. When did they ever go to work?

As they traveled back along a particularly narrow path, once again, it was like deja vu. Alisha once again lost her footing and began to fall. Banner reached out and grabbed her, but this time, things were different.

Banner could see the fear in her eyes as he relaxed his grip on her. Now she was falling, bouncing off overhangs on her way down. Finally, it was over. She lay lifeless and broken on the canyon floor.

Her Father fainted and had to be carried back down the mountain. On the ride back to the palace the guards wept again. This time for an understandable reason. Banner stared out the window. He could not hold back the tears.

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The next day, there was no celebration. There was weeping and wailing. Banner had never heard such noise. It tore at him. When he could stand it no longer, he joined in. Her father was heart broken. He took to his sick bed. Two days later, he joined his daughter.

Sheik Abdul debated about what to do with Banner. He thought about holding him as a hostage. Then he thought it would be better to release him. He could continue to fight for his liberal agenda in America.

On the flight back to America, Banner sat and looked out the window. When the attendant came by, he asked for a Kettle One on the rocks. He went back to staring out the window. He no longer wanted to save the world.

When he got back, he was going to resign. He would become a mailman or some other kind of public servant. He would no longer be John Banner, savior of the world. He would just be John Banner, or whatever his name was before he met Jerry Batista.