Ebola K: A Terrorism Thriller: Book 3 by Bobby Adair Page B

went in.  Less and less serum came out.”
    “Why?” asked Olivia.  “That doesn’t make any sense.”
    “Corruption.  All of this stuff is hitting the black market.  We don’t know if it’s being administered properly.  We don’t know who’s getting it.  We don’t know if it’s out there killing people.  Hell, it might be making the epidemic worse, making people sick who otherwise might have made it through this in good health.  But people are scared to death.  I can’t blame them.  The pictures are gruesome.  Ebola is a nightmare no matter how you look at it.  It may be the worst possible way to die.  Nobody wants to catch it.  Nobody.”

Chapter 17
    From the comfort of a plush chair, Najid sat on the third-floor balcony outside his room looking across the electric-blue waters of the Persian Gulf.  Dozens of sandy dots made up an artificial archipelago called The World Islands just off Dubai’s northern coast.  Many of those white sand islands lay in Najid’s view.  One hid a mansion behind a forest of palms.  Most were barren.  Undeveloped.  The island Najid was on belonged to Hadi’s wife’s cousin.  On that island, opulent life continued uninterrupted as though the rest of the world was not suffering its way out of a modern age and back into a harsher time.
    That couldn’t last.
    In the distance, the Palm Islands—much more popular, much more developed, and much more accessible—seemed to float in the calm waters; a fleet of sand-colored barges layered in lush green under towering palms, with rows of mansions trying to hide behind.  The Palm Islands were too far away for Najid to see anything moving, at least nothing the size of a person.  None of the million-dollar speedboats plied the waters.  No yachts slid gracefully over the rippled blue. 
    Only smoke from burning mansions on the far side of the islands gave any hint life was there, or in the throes of dying there.
    Looters?
    That was Najid’s guess.  He grimaced at the thought of Indian laborers, houseboys, and yardmen—ingrates all.  They’d been rescued from the poverty of Mumbai slums and given room, board, and pay well beyond what they could have received in India.  And what gratitude did they show to their employers for the opportunity at steady employment and the chance to send money back to their families? None.  Ebola changed the world, and the weak, amoral ones were showing their true faces now that the righteous authority of their masters was gone.
    “The smoke?” Hadi said, startling Najid.
    Najid didn’t flinch.  He pretended he wasn’t so lost in the hypnotic blue that he’d forgotten Hadi was sitting opposite him.  Najid said, “Indians.” They he felt dirty for allowing the word to traipse across his tongue.  He glanced at the coffee table, looking for a glass of water to wash it away.  He hated the guest workers almost as much as he hated the Americans and the Europeans. 
    No glass was present.  He glanced at Hadi.  “Bring me some water.”
    Hadi sat his laptop on a table and hurried out of the room.
    Najid looked at the smoke again and added the migrant workers to his list of peoples who would pay for their crimes when the new world—a world of his making—grew from the ashes of the old.
    Hadi showed up with a sweating pitcher of ice water and poured a cup for Najid.  He handed the cup to Najid and sat the pitcher on the table.
    Najid drank as Hadi seated himself and opened his laptop again.  “Tell me of the men.”
    Hadi stood back up, walked to the rail and pointed across the patchwork of islands to the one with the mansion and the palms.  “The fastballer Bellingham, the cricket player the Sheikh befriended, has died in London.  That was his island, given to him by the Sheikh.”
    “That is where my soldiers are?”
    Hadi smiled.  “Eighteen.  Enough room for them all to be comfortable.  Not as defensible as this island, it has no wall.  Its natural defense is the