Born of War by Anderson Harp Read Free Book Online Page B

would flow in just like the Americans’ sudden loyalty to a football team that had just won the Super Bowl. Omar was proud of his role in this plan.
    â€œDo you remember my first winter here?”
    â€œDid I know you?” his wife asked a fair question.
    â€œMy father was livid. I quit college in Mobile and called him from here.” Omar chuckled at the memory. “I don’t think I had ever had a cup of coffee until my first winter delivering milk to Somalis.”
    â€œYes, that is where I heard of you.” His wife smiled.
    â€œMilk and eggs.” He thought of the crates he tried to move on the dolly over the snow and ice. “And milkshakes. Always milkshakes. They would say ‘ Ya Waaye! ’ ”
    â€œWho’s there?”
    â€œYes, who’s there!”
    â€œThere is the gas station.” She pointed to an exit in a dismal part of Toronto. It was a safe place to stop and change.
    â€œI covered all of the Westside that winter.”
    The Westside of Toronto would hear of the Muslim boy from the South that caused an attack to be carried to the American heartland.
    â€œThe Somalis will be proud of me when they hear that I have joined the fight!”

C HAPTER S EVEN
    P aul Stewart studied the most recent email he had printed out as he spoke to the computer. The email had distracted him despite the importance of the conversation he was having with the woman on Skype.
    â€œAre you ignoring me?” A woman in her mid-twenties, with a natural, simple beauty was on the screen. She had black eyebrows that set off a near perfect face. Her hair was pulled back tightly just like her mother would often wear it.
    â€œNo, of course not.” He was, in fact, ignoring her. The email was from his boss, the director of the CDC. It spoke of the smallpox vials that had recently been discovered in a back storage room after being lost in the complex. The CDC was in the center of a firestorm.
    The complex campus of buildings held the most dangerous organisms in the world. It was close to Emory and in one of the most affluent neighborhoods in all of Atlanta. Many who lived nearby had always worried, but until now there wasn’t a well-known reason for the worry.
    â€œYes, you are.” She would catch him on occasion and pull him back to earth.
    Paul knew this weakness about himself. More than once in the lab, he looked up at the clock and made a mental note that he needed to start closing down the test for the day. In what felt like a few seconds, he glanced up at the clock again and saw that it was one in the morning.
    â€œThey are going to name a senior scientist to head up a complete revamping of our security system.” It would become the most important and unlimited job in the most well-known laboratory in the world. The chosen one would have access to every experiment, know all that was going on, and eventually be irreplaceable. He had been pushing for such a job for nearly a decade. Scientists were the worst for being told what they had to do. Protocol and systemic approaches to problems were the heart of science until a system was being imposed upon a team of MDs and PhDs.
    â€œYou have that job.”
    â€œI don’t think so.”
    â€œOh yes. If you want it.”
    He wasn’t sure if his daughter wanted him to get the job or was warning him to stay away from it.
    â€œSo, where are you now?” He tossed the email across his already overcrowded desk.
    â€œStill in an airport waiting for an airplane.”
    â€œI am not sure of this.” He squinted over his glasses as he spoke.
    â€œAgain?” She gave him a stare just like his wife would. She had her mother’s same blue eyes. They weren’t clearly visible on the remote computer hookup, but he knew them well. And he knew the blouse she was wearing. It was the same one she had on at Hartsfield several days ago when she left. It was a wildly colored blue and gold blouse, much