Covenant A Novel

BEN GURION INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

ISRAEL


Byron Stone stepped out of the sleek Gulfstream V550 jet and onto the tarmac, catching the commingled odors of aviation fuel and distant deserts on the night air. He might have briefly reveled in the unmistakable, aromatic scent of the Middle East, were it not for the pall of displeasure that enveloped him. A ring of uniformed soldiers surrounded the aircraft as Spencer Malik strode out to greet him.

“Good trip?” Malik saluted Stone, his back ramrod straight and his expression unreadable.

“What news?” Stone asked without preamble. Malik dropped the salute and joined him as they walked toward a parked car nearby.

“The preparations are continuing as planned, and the remains will be here by tomorrow and flown back to the States. Customs won’t be a problem, I’ve handled that.”

“What else?” Stone demanded.

Malik squirmed uneasily.

“Our site in the Negev was compromised earlier today by a journalist.” Stone ground his teeth but remained silent as Malik spoke. “The man’s name is Ethan Warner. He’s got history in Gaza going back a few years.”

“So I’ve heard. What was he doing at the site?”

“We’re not sure, but he wasn’t alone. He was led in by a Bedouin guide whom we captured but who subsequently escaped. Warner also escaped, along with Rachel Morgan.”

Stone hissed a breath from his lungs as he stopped beside the car.

“Go on.”

“The pair fled in a private aircraft that was intercepted by the IDF at Ben Gurion. Warner was not on board, nor was the woman. The owners of the aircraft claim they took off alone and were then harassed by a MACE helicopter in a case of mistaken identity, a story that the IDF appears to believe, and they have no apparent interest in Warner or the woman. The pair must have jumped out over the Gaza Strip, in which case they’re now almost certainly trying to return to Israel with the evidence.”

Stone cast a fearsome glare in Malik’s direction. “Evidence?”

Malik carefully formulated his response.

“The Bedouin guide was involved in an altercation with the guards at the site that resulted in an unfortunate incident. It would appear that Warner was able to film part of the altercation and escape with the footage.”

“Your purpose was to ensure that MACE maintained a low but professional profile,” Stone growled. “What kind of imbecilic morons have you employed here?”

“My men were guarding a site on the border of the Negev’s training area,” Malik replied quickly. “They had no knowledge of what the site contained, as we agreed. Our people are told only that which they absolutely need to know.”

“What happened to the soldiers at the site?” Stone snapped.

“One was killed, another two injured. They’re being treated in a field hospital in Jerusalem. The dead man’s family have been informed. We can use his demise to illustrate the aggression faced by our team at the site.”

Stone forced his chest to expand and suck in air, calming himself by force of will.

“How long ago did this man Warner infiltrate Gaza?”

“Two hours at most,” Malik said. “We have narrowed their position down to a small area of Jabaliya.”

“What of the IDF?”

“They remain convinced that we were pursuing terrorists of one kind or another. The pilots of the civilian aircraft have not made any statement to the effect that they flew by choice over Gaza or allowed people to parachute into the territory: to do so would render them liable to prosecution for violating any number of Israeli aviation laws.”

Stone thought for a moment.

“Then we must ensure that Warner does not make it back into Israel with this evidence of his. MACE cannot afford an investigation here in Israel, financially nor professionally, especially at this time. We’ve only just closed the litigation against us in Iraq.”

Malik nodded. “I will deal with it personally.”

“You will do no such thing,” Stone snapped, and glanced over his shoulder.

Rafael walked slowly across the tarmac toward them, dressed in a traditional Arab shawl that couldn’t conceal his powerful frame.

“We don’t need Rafael,” Malik uttered quickly, his authority suddenly under threat. “If he learns of our activities in Gaza, he could become a liability and—”

“Right now, you’re the goddamn liability,” Stone snapped.

“This way,” Stone gestured toward a SUV parked nearby as Rafael joined them.

The three men climbed aboard and closed the doors. Rafael regarded Stone for a moment before speaking. “What would you have me do?”

Spencer Malik sat in frigid silence as Stone spoke.

“I require you to infiltrate the Gaza Strip, locate and retrieve explosives and a camera stolen from one of our encampments, and ensure that you are not identified.”

Rafael nodded silently in response. Malik, mastering his humiliation, spoke up.

“When should we implement this?”

“Immediately,” Stone said. “I will speak to the IDF in Jerusalem. You will provide me with any and all evidence supporting the infiltration of the Negev site by insurgents crossing the Sinai. Provide tracking evidence and have it ready for presentation within the hour. I will then request clearance from Israel’s Northern Command to use Gazan airspace. Once Rafael has located and recovered the evidence, we will use one of our Valkyrie drones to vaporize the problem. Understood?”

Malik twisted his features into a crooked smile as he glanced suspiciously at Rafael.

“I know that we need this situation contained, but the more people we bring into this the more complicated everything becomes. This should remain an internal affair and—”

“If you’d done your job, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” Stone snapped.

“What evidence am I looking for?” Rafael asked Stone.

“Photographic evidence,” the Texan drawled. “A camera and film.”

Malik looked at the Arab. “You don’t need to know any more than that, Araboosh.” He took the word, twisted it, and shoved it into Rafael’s face.

Rafael regarded the soldier in stony silence, not rising to the provocation.

“Do whatever you feel necessary to obtain that equipment,” Stone said to Rafael, then looked directly at Malik. “Let me down again and I’ll have you guarding illiterate drug dealers queuing for bread in Chechnya, understood?”

Malik winced but said nothing as Rafael climbed out of the vehicle. Stone waited until he was out of sight before leaning closer to Malik.

“I would prefer that the evidence is destroyed rather than recovered during this mission, along with all witnesses.”

In the darkness, Malik’s grimace twisted into a cruel smile.





M STREET SW, WASHINGTON DC


What do we got?”

Tyrell drove out of the MPD Headquarters onto Delaware Avenue, his headlights illuminating the colorful murals painted on the walls of the station claiming “We can” and “We will” as Nicola Lopez read the files she had downloaded from the Metropolitan Police Department’s servers.

“Kelvin Patterson, born 1954, Huntsville, Alabama. Married to Julie, no fewer than six kids. The guy’s an evangelical fruit loop, the type who appears on TV after every disaster and claims it was the hand of God. Last time he got major news coverage was after Hurricane Katrina, claiming the storm was God’s wrath for the American tolerance of homosexual marriages and abortions.”

“Criminal activity?”

“The guy’s as clean as a pastor could be. Earned a degree in theology from the University of Phoenix in Austin, Texas, before joining a revolution in political religious activism in the early eighties. Moved to the District and attached himself to the hard-right political parties before starting his own ministry. Was a millionaire within five years and now heads a congregation of around thirty million Americans gathered under a federation of evangelical churches across several states. He has his headquarters in the District in a purpose-built megachurch he had constructed four years ago.”

Tyrell changed lanes.

“What about these radio and TV shows that the kid mentioned?”

“Patterson does a weekly radio piece called This Bread, an ad for various faith leaders pushing the boat out for bringing God into the public sphere. Apparently, they either don’t know or don’t care that to do so would be against the Constitution. The TV show is the vehicle that made him a millionaire, with regular tithing events and requests for viewers’ money donated for charitable causes.”

“Like the hospital?”

“Among other things,” Lopez noted, scanning through the files. “It would seem that the good pastor manages to cream off a holy slice for himself. Three houses, plenty of cars. This guy’s big and he’s well connected. He’s allied to the current opposition front runner for the primaries, Senator Isaiah Black. They were college friends, apparently.” Lopez put the file down. “It’s hardly a lead, though. This guy recruits from prison populations through his charities and hospitals, but he has no direct contact with them.”

Tyrell massaged his temples with his free hand, wiping the sweat from his forehead. The car was hot but his skin felt cold to the touch and a dull nausea infected his stomach.

“There’ll be something,” he said. “We’ve got enough here to at least make some inquiries, provided I can get it past Powell.”

“There’s no way he’s gonna let you harass this guy. Everything we’ve got is circumstantial and none of it actually points to a homicide. Where are we goin’ anyway?”

“General Hospital Southeast. I’ve got an appointment with a doctor there.”

“Great.” Lopez smiled brightly. “It’s about damned time.”

“The appointment’s not for me,” Tyrell countered. “Suppose that Claretta’s recollections were all correct. This kid was pulled from the AEA’s institute and subjected to medical experiments. What the hell do you think would be the point of that?”

Lopez shrugged.

“There’s no point in killing someone just to bring ’em back. You want a mark to stay down, not get up and start wanderin’ around looking for the cops.”

“Unless there was some reason for keeping them dead,” Tyrell said quietly, “even just for a while.”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s what we’re going to find out.”

Tyrell found a space in the hospital’s parking lot before he and Lopez entered the crowded ER. Tyrell was directed to a small room overlooking one of the operating theaters.

The windows were of smoked glass, allowing people to look in from the viewing platform without distracting the attention of the surgeons below. A man stood on the platform with his arms folded, observing the surgery going on within the theater below as Tyrell and Lopez joined him.

“Dr. Holloway?”

Dr. Graham Holloway was shorter than Tyrell and armed with quick, alert blue eyes and an aura of supreme confidence.

“Detective Tyrell,” he said, shaking Tyrell’s hand.

Tyrell introduced Lopez before looking down into the theater below. Eight surgeons surrounded a patient on the table, the theater filled with computers and complex-looking devices all connected to each other and the patient with a web of wires and tubes.

“What can I do for you?” Holloway asked.

“I understand that you’re the senior surgeon here,” Tyrell said, transfixed by the surgery below them.

“I’m the most experienced by years but there’s no real order of seniority.”

“Okay,” Tyrell said, opening his notebook. “When you perform surgery on your patients, how often is it necessary to put them into a homeostatic state?”

“Only when we’re required to perform deeply invasive brain surgery in hemorrhagic brain injuries or aggressive melanoma cases.”

“Cancer?” Lopez asked from one side.

“Yes. Very occasionally patients will be referred to us suffering from malignant tumors close to the brain stem or deep in the cerebral cortex.”

“And if you are required to perform such a procedure, you might bring the patient’s heartbeat down to a crawl,” Tyrell suggested. “How would you go about that?”

“There are several methods,” Holloway said, “but the principal ones include chemicals that relax the major organs. Another is via induced hypothermia.”

Tyrell caught Lopez’s look of surprise. Dr. Holloway didn’t miss the silent exchange. “It might help if you were to tell me what the problem is,” he suggested.

Tyrell nodded.

“We noticed some unusual pathology in the autopsies of three bodies discovered yesterday morning. All three had suffered from the early stages of hypothermia.” Tyrell saw Holloway raise his eyebrows at that. “You’re aware that it’s been nearly eighty degrees across the District over the past few days.”

“Go on,” the surgeon said quietly.

“The medical examiner confirmed that all three individuals showed excessive hydrogen sulphide in their blood.”

“Anything else?”

“All of the victims were of the same blood group, O-negative, but originally their blood had been AB, suggesting a transfusion.” Tyrell took a breath. “Given what I’ve just told you, what would be your best estimate of the kind of procedure that these individuals were subjected to?”

Holloway let out a long breath before speaking.

“It’s possible that a human body cooled using a saline solution to transfuse blood could suffer effects somewhat like frostbite if the procedure was poorly conducted.”

“They were actually frozen?” Lopez asked, mortified.

“Yes, it’s a common procedure developed to make open-heart surgery easier and is being enhanced for battlefield trauma victims and automobile accidents. By rapidly cooling the body using a chilled saline solution, a form of controlled hypothermia can be induced in the victim, slowing their metabolism to clinical death.”

“How does it work?” Tyrell asked.

“The patient is anesthetized, hooked up to a heart-bypass machine, and receives heparin, which is made from cow’s gut, to prevent blood clotting. The heart is then stopped via intravenously administered potassium chloride. The body is cooled over a period of about one hour to a temperature of around sixteen degrees Centigrade, essentially as cold as a corpse. We then drain the blood from the body and replace it with a chilled saline solution. By this time the patient is clinically dead, with no heartbeat, no blood, and no brain activity. Surgery is undertaken and when the work is complete the process is reversed, ending with a small electrical charge applied to the heart to initiate rhythm.”

“And this is done on a regular basis?” Lopez asked.

“Only in extreme cases to allow prolonged access to the brain or heart,” Holloway admitted. “Long-term hypothermic methods have only been conducted so far on dogs and mice in an experimental manner. The method was reported as having a success rate of better than eighty percent. The dogs even answered to their own names.”

“Eighty percent,” Lopez repeated softly. “And the other twenty?”

“Hard to tell in animals,” Holloway said, “but probably a condition similar to posttraumatic stress or schizophrenia. Mood swings and evidence of depression were noted, along with motor deficiency.”

Tyrell nodded, thinking furiously now.

“What about the altered blood group of the victims?”

“Entire blood transfusions are not uncommon,” Holloway said, “but would only occur to prevent rejection of foreign organs.”

Tyrell nodded, gathering his thoughts. “We have a survivor.”

“A what?”

“A twenty-one-year-old who survived this procedure. He’s suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and will be on antidepressants for the rest of his life. His mother told us that he and others were experimented on by physicians who, among other things, were attempting to extract and replace their blood. Many of the victims died. When we spoke to the medical examiner who examined the bodies we found, he said that the blood in their bodies was genetically unrecognizable, not human. One of the victims had suffered the extraction of reproductive tissues.”

Dr. Holloway’s face drained of color, turning almost as pale as the white of his coat. He looked from Tyrell to Lopez and back again.

“I can’t imagine what that would mean.”

“Try.”

“If you were to put a gun to my head and force me to suggest something, then the only thing that I can think of is that somebody was trying to use humans as incubators, perhaps to generate blood lines or stem cells for a chimera.”

Tyrell looked at Lopez, who had also paled. “What’s a chimera?”

Holloway spoke quietly.

“A species that is a combination of the genetic codes of two preceding species, a hybrid if you will.” Holloway paled again. “Whoever conducted those experiments is using human incubators in order to bring something back to life.”





What do you mean, bring something back to life?”

Lopez watched as Dr. Holloway removed his spectacles and cleaned them as he spoke.

“With the recent advance of genetic science, it’s been possible to cross-breed two distinct species in order to create a half-breed, a chimera. It happens in nature quite a lot, but the more separated the two species are from their common ancestor, the less likely they are to be able to produce offspring.”

“But it’s been done,” Tyrell guessed.

“Oh yes. Sheep and goats produced a chimera, the so-called ‘Geep.’ Such interspecies are made in the laboratory by transplanting embryonic cells from an animal with one trait into the embryo of an animal with a different trait. This practice is common in the field.”

“So why would somebody want to conduct that procedure on humans?” Tyrell pressed.

“I really don’t know,” Holloway said. “But whatever the aim, the procedure would be highly illegal. In 2003, researchers at the Shanghai Second Medical University in China successfully fused human skin cells and dead rabbit eggs to create the first human chimeric embryos. The embryos were allowed to develop for several days in a laboratory setting, then destroyed to harvest the resulting stem cells. But from what you’re suggesting—”

“They’re using unwilling victims,” Tyrell said. “Which means that they’re probably taking things further than stem cells.”

“Could they produce another species if they had the required materials?” Lopez asked, clearly appalled by the thought of such genetic engineering.

“Absolutely.” Holloway nodded. “Though there would be a number of obstacles to overcome.”

“Such as?” Tyrell pressed.

“Well, the immune system would need to be repressed, which could explain the hypothermic cooling. Then there’s the fact that sperm and eggs of differing species won’t recognize each other, and the number of chromosomes won’t match, which will prevent effective fertilization. They would need to acquire stem cells from the species they’re trying to clone, or at least culture cells from existing material in order to produce viable embryos using host or donor cells, which could explain the surgery marks on some of your victims and …”

Dr. Holloway suddenly trailed off. Tyrell saw the doctor’s expression sag and his eyes fill with horror.

“What is it?” Tyrell asked.

Holloway shook his head, his voice throaty as he spoke.

“If they fertilized human eggs that had had their nucleus replaced with foreign stem cells, they could possibly create an embryo that could then be implanted into a host.”

Lopez winced.

“They can do that?”

“They could use bone-marrow stem cells,” Holloway said, “from the species they are trying to clone. From those cells all the various types of blood cells are descended, and using a laboratory can give rise to even non-marrow cells.”

“Like embryonic stem cells,” Tyrell suggested.

“It’s cloning, in effect.” Holloway nodded. “Whole cell or animal cloning occurs through the transfer of the nucleus of an adult cell into an enucleated egg. This can result in the reprogramming of the adult cell DNA to produce a cloned animal. They could create an extinct species, for instance, from the nucleus of a cultured mammary gland cell or similar that is then fused to a human egg cell that has had its own nucleus removed. The fused cell can then be implanted into a female human host. Nuclear transfer has been applied to produce cloned animals like cows, goats, pigs, mice, cats, and so on.”

“What, you mean impregnated in vitro?”

Holloway nodded, his features twisted with distaste.

“In the 1920s, Joseph Stalin sent an animal-breeding expert to Africa in hopes of creating an army of half-man, half-monkey soldiers. They tried to inseminate women with monkey sperm and impregnate female chimpanzees with human sperm. All of the attempts failed. But now we have genetic control over the donors and recipients, which is why they might be harvesting rare O-negative blood via transfusion, to reduce the chances of immuno-shock in the impregnated female if the source species carried the same blood.”

“Why is that type of blood so rare?” Tyrell asked.

“Evolution,” the doctor said. “Most blood groups can be traced back to our evolutionary cousins via proteins, and human blood reacts with the blood of rhesus monkeys as a result of our shared antibodies. Some ninety percent of people have the rhesus antibody in their blood, hence our shared common origin.”

“But some don’t,” Tyrell said.

“About ten percent of people have rhesus-negative blood, which means that the antibodies are not present. That’s good for other people as they can receive the blood from O-negative donors without fear of rejection. The problem is its heritage: O-negative blood constitutes less than seven percent of the world population. We just don’t know where the hell it comes from, as it’s the purest form of human blood and the only type that cannot be cloned. Most believe that it’s something like our original human blood before the mixing of populations, but nobody’s really sure.”

Tyrell tried to understand what the doctor was saying.

“So this blood type has no apparent origin in human evolution?”

“It evolved all right, it’s just that we can’t tell how or where it started. Our species evolved in Africa, yet only one percent of rhesus-negative people are of African descent. That means it must have appeared after our dispersal from Africa millions of years ago. The highest concentration of people with rhesus-negative blood live in the Basque region and Israel.”

“When did it appear?” Lopez asked curiously.

“Our best estimate is around five to six thousand years ago, roughly the time that human civilization began.”

“The dawn of recorded history,” Lopez said. “Didn’t Claretta mention something about that, something she’d heard from Daniel?”

Tyrell nodded.

“Men of renown,” he murmured. “Some kind of quote. And our pastor at the Evangelical Alliance has been running blood-donation charities across the District.”

Tyrell thanked Dr. Holloway before turning and walking away with Lopez, who produced her notebook.

“I want you to get me a list of every surgeon who has ever served in the District, Virginia, New Jersey, and Maryland. Start with people who have worked for the Evangelical Alliance’s hospitals.”

Lopez nodded, scribbling as she did so.

“Then get me everything you can on the American Evangelical Alliance’s activities over the last ten years, specifically those that involve drug rehabilitation and blood work. Make sure that you learn everything you can about Kelvin Patterson: how he works, where he works, who supports him, who hates him, and why.”

“Wait one,” Lopez looked at Tyrell. “You can’t just build a case here and then get in his face. It might send a warning to whoever is responsible.”

“I don’t give a damn if he turns out to be God’s right-hand man and can turn shit into gold just by looking at it. If he’s the owner of this hospital, then he’s got some responsibility for it, and if he’s innocent of any crime, then he should have no problems assisting us.”

Lopez sighed, brushing a thick lock of black hair from her eyes. “Run any of this by the district attorney and I’ll be impressed.”

“My guess is that there aren’t all that many neurosurgeons out there and even less who have had their medical licenses revoked. We have one survivor, and that means whoever did it was competent enough not to kill everybody they tried it on.”

Lopez nodded, but remained unconvinced. “It’ll take a lot of man-hours.”

“Not if we’re on the right track already. Dr. Holloway said that these people with rare blood originated somewhere in Israel, so make your search in particular for surgeons with any kind of connection to Israel.”

“What about Daniel Neville? He’s in a hospital owned by the people we’re investigating. Don’t you think we should get him some kind of protection?”

Tyrell nodded.

“Get on it, and don’t let Powell talk you down. I want an officer guarding that hospital ward until this case is solved.”