I Am Pilgrim

The narrative returns to al-Nassouri, who has returned to Afghanistan, once again a combat zone. When stopped, either by US forces or their opponents, he maintains his new alias as a doctor. He conceals his equipment for working with infectious biohazards and disguises his virus among real vaccines he carries.

Murdoch explains the most likely method for bioengineering a previously extinct pathogen. Ironically, a Pentagon-funded research study al-Nassouri read informed him that buying all the key DNA for a virus, and reconstructing its genome, is all possible using the internet. Murdoch reports that he himself verified the ease and rapidity of acquiring the information.

Al-Nassouri converts his garage in Beirut into a laboratory. His most challenging task is to ensure that his vaccine is both highly lethal and vaccine-evasive, so that he can render the US government’s vaccine stockpile useless. He returns to Afghanistan, new virus in hand, with the hope to conduct a small human trial. He arrives at a heavily fortified fortress, formerly British, now held by an Afghan leader: al-Nassouri’s old acquaintance, Abdul Imran Khan.

Al-Nassouri asks Khan to dismiss his retainers, and he calmly explains that he needs help: three non-Muslims for use in his experiment, since their deaths will be acceptable. He asks al-Nassouri about his personal life, and the younger man mournfully recounts that he was married to a woman who has since died but has a surviving son. These details, though not explained at this time, will prove crucial to Murdoch’s mission to stop the bioterrorism attack.

Weeks after his arrival, Khan tells al-Nassouri to rendezvous with his hostages. His future victims are two men and one pregnant woman. Murdoch reports that the men who conducted the kidnapping were later harshly interrogated, which is how he knows some of these details. Al-Nassouri, Murdoch posits, sees even the pregnant woman as a means to an end: “[T]hey weren’t people to him, they were a gift from God” (208). He chooses the woman to vaccinate as well, to verify that his virus will be deadly to the entire population.

He injects all three with the virus, dressed in protective gear. They soon fall ill and die in terrible pain. Before her death, the woman witnesses al-Nassouri make a phone call—evidence Murdoch will later use to track him.

Briefly leaving the scene, Murdoch-as-narrator explains that bioterrorism scenarios like al-Nassouri’s plan were well known in the Pentagon. Unluckily, the official government plans assumed the threat will be a single infected person. Al-Nassouri’s plan, Murdoch warns, will prove much more efficient. This cryptic hint refers the details Murdoch only learns later: al-Nassouri plans to place his virus in large amounts of the seasonal flu vaccine.

After his victims are dead, al-Nassouri turns the village into a live trap of mines and explosives that will detonate when discovered, to prevent any searchers from finding his victims. He uses the quicklime to destroy much of the remaining material and incinerates the bodies.

His horses alert him to the arrival of a search helicopter. The new arrivals are Australian troops, in search of the hostages. Their trail was found, ironically, because their illnesses made their heat signatures easier to detect. Two of the men trigger al-Nassouri’s mines, while a young lieutenant, Keating, tries to prevent the rest from running into more danger. The Saracen decides to climb onto the village rooftops, making him safe from his own traps. He decides to shoot at the soldiers, knowing that rescuing the wounded may distract them and allow him to escape. Keating shoots at him but misses.

Keating remains focused on the rescue mission, until he notices the quicklime. As an Australian who grew up on farms, he knows it is used to dissolve organic material and that there is no application for it that would explain its use to a mere kidnapper. He decides to tell the army he suspects nuclear weapons, knowing this will ensure a rapid investigation. Murdoch notes that this deception means that the army finds key evidence, “the corner of one saddle blanket” (230).

Al-Nassouri, slightly injured in his escape, finds and mounts one of his abandoned horses. He rides away in another escape, oblivious to the fact that the military search parties are seeking a man on foot.