Alpha and Omega Read online

  Alpha and Omega

  Giles Ekins

  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

  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

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Dear Reader

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Notes

  Copyright (C) 2020 Giles Ekins

  Layout design and Copyright (C) 2020 by Next Chapter

  Published 2020 by Terminal Velocity – A Next Chapter Imprint

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author’s permission.

  For Patricia, as always.

  Prologue

  In October 1347, Genoese trading ships put into the harbour at Messina in Sicily. Blackened and pustulating corpses, swollen in the heat, lay slumped across the oars. Dead and dying men lay strewn about the decks.

  The Black Death had come to Europe.

  Over the next five years more than 20 million people died. The contemporary 14th century chronicler Froissart records that 'one third of the world died.' How many had already died in India and China and across Asia, from whence the Black Death had come, nobody can say - at least another 20 million, more likely double or treble that figure. In 1665, the Great Plague, although less widespread than the Black Death, killed many millions more.

  The influenza epidemic of 1918/1919 killed four times as many people as the Great War which had preceded it. At least 20 million people are thought to have died in Europe alone. Among them was my great grand-father, Capt. William George Franklyn MC, who had survived 4 years in the trenches, living through everything that the Germans could throw at him. He was gassed at Ypres, shot and wounded on the Somme, shelled and wounded at Passchendaele - he lived through all that only to come home to die from influenza 5 months later. Sometimes the world shows a cruel and mocking face.

  Worldwide, millions died in the Asian flu and Hong Kong flu outbreaks of 1957 and 1969-70.

  But, calamitous as these disasters were, they pale into insignificance when compared to the Sargon Pandemic of 1999.

  For Apocalypse was nigh, loose upon the world, a great beast stalking

  Chapter One

  Baghdad claims victory

  Baghdad claimed victory yesterday in its latest stand-off with the UN over weapons inspections and vowed never 'to hand over the keys of Iraq to the forces of imperialism', branding the latest attempt to gain access to the previously undeclared weapons facility at An Ba'qubah, on the outskirts of Baghdad, as an outrage, 'orchestrated by the United States and its lackies the UN in a futile attempt to destroy the proud sovereignty of the people of Iraq.'

  Efforts by UN inspectors to gain admission to the suspect facility at An Ba’qubah were refused by Baghdad and the team of inspectors have been held in virtual confinement in the car park of the facility for 17 days. The team has now been withdrawn from Iraq.

  Richard Butler, the head of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), and his mission left Baghdad today, saying that the 17 day stand-off was very serious and that Iraq must comply 'in all respects with UN Resolution 715 regarding the destruction of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and allow unhindered access to suspected weapons facilities.'

  Jurgen Fischer, the Bahrain based regional representative said that the head of UNSCOM was preparing a report that he would submit to the Security Council hearing tomorrow, both in respect of the alleged weapons facility at An Ba'qubah and Iraq's continued refusal to re- activate the surveillance cameras and allow inspection at the missile test sites at Rafah and Yawm Al Azim.

  Iraq’s continued intransigence has already caused intensive debate within the United Nations Security Council with some officials proposing an immediate strike against Baghdad in order to teach Saddam a lesson, especially in view of repeated threats by Baghdad to shoot down U2 surveillance planes.

  In a related report, information circulating amongst intelligence sources indicate that there have been further attempts by senior figures to overthrow Saddam and that several officers and officials have been arrested and executed, but no further details are available.

  (Taken from the 'Gulf Daily News', Bahrain. March 11, 1998)

  Chapter Two

  BAGHDAD. IRAQ. ABU GAIB KHASSA (SPECIAL SECURITY WING, BAGHDAD PRISON) MARCH 14 1998 GMT 11.35 PM.

  (LOCAL TIME 01.35AM MARCH 15 )

  The uniformed guard scurried on ahead. Behind him, the boots of Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti, President and Prime Minister of Iraq, Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council and his entourage echoed menacingly along the long concrete corridor. Industrial lights, set into the wall, let out fitful light, casting fleeting shadows as the grim-faced men passed by. At the end of the corridor the guard unlocked a heavy steel door and threw it back into the cell. The door crashed back against the wal
l, setting up another echoing cascade of din along the corridor walls. Reaching inside, the guard threw a light switch. Powerful industrial halogen floodlights, so bright they hurt the eyes, seared across the execution chamber. Bizarrely, a 'Welcome' mat lay at the doorway.

  'Excellency', the guard muttered fearfully and ushered Saddam into the cell. The room was large, about 40' long and 25' wide. The walls of the chamber had been lined from floor to ceiling with 6" square white ceramic tiles, like an abattoir. The floor was also laid with white tiles, the grouting stained dirty brown with blood. Down the centre of the floor ran a drainage channel, with cast iron gratings, running full length from wall to wall like a giant black zipper. Hose pipes, for the washing down of blood, hung coiled up like waiting black pythons on brackets on the wall.

  The concrete ceiling had once been painted white, but now the paint was flaked and peeling, the bare concrete beneath damp and mould-scarred. A grid of steel hooks had been set into the ceiling at 4' intervals. From these hooks hung the bodies of 14 naked men, slowly strangling in nooses of piano wire, the length of the wire so set that the agonised men could just stand on the very points of their toes, a grotesque ballet, prolonging their torment.

  In the harsh light of the floodlights, their bodies could be seen to be a patchwork quilt of purpled yellow bruises, of burns and cuts, here and there grotesque protuberances through flesh and skin indicated broken bones. One man's chest had been sliced open from neck to navel, the exposed flesh charred and roasted where it had been seared by a blow torch. The men's penises were shrivelled black and burnt, as were their nipples and ear lobes, charcoaled by the electrodes that had been clamped to them by means of heavy serrated spring clips. Sleaks of gore trickled down the twitching legs of the men and ran across the tiled floor in squirming crimson snakes.

  The dangling men had voided their bowels and the stench of faeces and excruciated human flesh within the room was almost physical, like a noisome wet cloth wrapped around the faces of the observers. Feeling faint and sick to his stomach Major-General Abdul Aziz Muttar swayed and almost leaned across to support himself against the wall, but finally did not - afraid of displaying weakness and unwilling to contaminate himself with the vileness that seemed to permeate the very fabric of the chamber.

  A low threnodic groaning echoed around the cell, the dying torments of the men, hissed out from broken mouths.

  Saddam Hussein nodded approvingly, he had once been a torturer for Jihaz Haneen, the Ba'ath party intelligence service, learning his trade at the party's main prison, the Qasr al-Nihayyah, the Palace of the End, where King Faisel II and his family had been murdered in the 1958 coup. He knew good work when he saw it. He turned to the guard, 'How long?, he inquired', asking not how long they had been hanging, but rather how much longer they could be made to suffer. The executioner explained that by placing a block of wood beneath the victims' feet, the pressure could be temporarily relieved before the wood was kicked away once more. This could be repeated several times before they finally died.

  'Do it,' Saddam ordered brusquely. He then abruptly spun on his heels and arched out again. In unison, as if orchestrated by a drill sergeant, the entourage turned as well, and automatically fell into position according to rank, following behind their President, scurrying to catch up with him as he marched resolutely down the corridor.

  From inside other cells came the groans and screams as interrogators from the security forces questioned other suspects. The 14 men hanging in the execution chamber had been suspected of involvement in the recent coup attempt. Although there had been no evidence of complicity in the alleged coup, the men, all senior Army officers or Ba'ath party officials suspected of less than unswerving loyalty, had been condemned by Saddam.

  Countless other suspects languished in cells and interrogation centres across the length of the country. Many more had At the end of the corridor another aide stood by stainless steel lift doors. As Saddam approached, he inserted a key into the control panel and opened the doors for his leader. The doors hissed closed and Saddam was whisked away to the sub-basement level, and then by high speed underground electric railway (covertly built by British engineers on the pattern of London's underground mail trains) through a series of subterranean tunnels transecting the under cloth of Baghdad like a rabbit warren. Twenty minutes after leaving the detention and execution centre at Abu Ghraib Khassa, Saddam Hussein entered his main underground command headquarters.

  Constructed beneath the Presidential Palace in Baghdad, the bunker was a complete self-contained underground town, capable of housing almost 5,000 troops and specialists. Immediately after Saddam's defeat in the 1991 Gulf War he had secretly strengthened and extended the bunker to massive proportions.

  The equivalent of 16 floors deep, the bunker extended out far below the streets of Baghdad and under the River Tigris. A gigantic 8' thick ultra-hardened concrete cube, the bunker was mounted on huge springs of hard moulded rubber more than 6' in diameter. It was earthquake proof and capable of withstanding almost any assault, if a medium megaton nuclear bomb were to explode a quarter of a mile away, only minor vibrations would be felt within the structure.

  The main command and control centre was modelled on the US NORAD command and control centre buried deep beneath Cheyenne Mountain at Colorado Springs and contained enough computers, teleprinters, electronics and fibre optic communications links for Saddam to control and maintain contact with all his armies throughout the country without ever having cause to leave the centre. Earthquake proof elevators connected Saddam's Hussein luxurious private quarters (complete with isolated air scrubbing plants and decontamination suites in case of nuclear attack) to the other levels of the bunker. These elevators could only be accessed through air locks and vault doors within his heavily guarded office in the command centre or from behind a secret wall built into his office on the ground floor of the Presidential Palace. Other heavily secured passages led to the underground railway.

  The complex security codes for operating the doors were known to only a handful of trusted aides and were frequently and randomly changed and apart from Saddam, no one ever had details of the several and separate codes that were required to open the innermost doors into his sanctum. The security systems within the bunker (for the safeguarding of Saddam Hussein) made Fort Knox look like a child's plastic piggy bank. Remotely controlled machine guns posts guarded every corridor and entire sections and passages of the bunker could be automatically sealed off by heavy steel doors and filled with Sarin and Tabun poison gas, killing everyone within that section.

  A secret underground road tunnel, built from hardened concrete led from below Saddam's quarters to Saddam Hussein International Airport, 17 kilometres away, and in case the airport was under attack, yet another tunnel led out from beneath the VIP lounge 16 kilometres out into the desert and a secret helicopter landing pad out in the desert.

  Apart from carefully orchestrated public forays, Saddam Hussein, eternally paranoid, now rarely ever left this bunker, returning only occasionally to the Palace above on the banks of the Tigris or to one of several smaller personal bunkers located at other strategic positions below the city, again by means of the underground railway.

  Chapter Three

  After his return from Abu Graib Khassa, Saddam read the latest dispatches from his ambassador at the United Nations in New York, curling his lips in disdain as he read that the Security Council had once again condemned his intransigence and demanded immediate access to the alleged weapons factory at An Ba'qubah. He tossed the report aside and retired to his private quarters. He poured himself a glass of 20 year old Chivas Regal from a heavy Lalique crystal decanter and gave the glass to his orderly to drink from in case the scotch had been poisoned.

  Satisfied, Saddam took the glass back and wiped around the rim with some tissues, drank deeply and then snapped his fingers and pointed. The orderly scurried across the room and switched on the 36" Nokia wide screen television set into the silk faced wall panelling.
The television was permanently tuned onto CNN, received by satellite dish installed on the roof of the Presidential Palace beneath which the bunker was constructed.

  Saddam Hussein settled down into the depths of an Italian leather sofa and dismissed the orderly with a sharp nod of his head. Less than a minute later another door opened and a tall blonde girl slid into the room. She was one of Saddam's many mistresses, a Lebanese girl procured for him by an Armenian arms supplier arms called Sarkis Ghajourian. The girl stood before Saddam, legs apart, and slowly raised the hem of her dress up to her waist, gyrating her hips, thrusting her groin at his face..