Brad Thor - Blowback

“So what? You haven’t earned it.”

“Earned it? How dare you say I haven’t earned it? I’ve busted my ass for the party.”

“And it hasn’t gone unnoticed.”

“Then how can you say I haven’t earned a spot on the ticket?”

“You haven’t earned your stripes,” replied Mercer as he held out his sleeve and patted his forearm. “Nobody gives a shit what you’ve done for the state of Pennsylvania. If it weren’t for your husband, you wouldn’t have that job in the first place. What’s more, you’ve got a shitty public image. Half of voting Americans, hell, half of your own constituents think you’re a raging bull dyke, and the other half think the only reason you’re in office is to help facilitate your husband’s business deals. It won’t sell. Not where we need it the most.”

Carmichael waited for the waiter to set down her martini and back away from the table before responding. “My own people have been encouraging me to work on my public image, and I’ll admit I’ve been slow to respond, but I can change that. I’ll even bring in outside consultants if I have to. Whatever it takes, I’ll do it. You want me to soften things up? Consider it done. Just don’t scratch me off the list of possible contenders for the ticket.”

The woman was amazing. She was an absolute chameleon. One minute she could be the Beltway’s biggest brass-balled bitch, and the next she was turning in a “Please, sir, may I have some more?” performance worthy of the best Dickens novel. Mercer, though, had seen it all before. Political ambition came in a million shapes and styles. If Helen Carmichael wanted the Democratic nomination so bad, she was going to have to work for it, and Mercer knew just how to make her do it. Regardless of whether they put her on the ticket or not, if the DNC kept her focused, Senator Carmichael could broadside the Republicans so bad there was no way President Rutledge’s campaign would be able to bail water fast enough.

Mercer settled back into the booth, reached for his wineglass, and said, “Maybe we can work something out. Tell me, how are your hearings progressing?”

HOTEL GARE DU NORD

PARIS

Tell me some more about Hannibal and his love of biological weapons,” said Harvath, unbuttoning his shirt as Jillian emptied the ice bucket on top of the mini bar into a plastic bag and handed it to him.

“First things first,” she replied. “Let me take a look at your ribs.”

Harvath pulled back his shirt so Jillian could see the softball-sized bruise that was setting up shop along his left side.

“Does anything feel broken?” she asked as she reached her hand out toward his side.

“Hold on a second,” said Harvath as he caught her hand. “You’re a doctor of paleopathology, not medicine.”

“For your information, I rode ambulances to help pay for school and doubled as a nurse’s assistant on several archeological digs during my summers off from Durham.”

“Imagine my luck,” said Harvath as Jillian’s fingers slid across his flesh. “Any of your patients actually live?”

“Very funny,” she said, applying pressure to an obviously sensitive part of the bruise. “This looks tender.”

Harvath sucked in a painful breath as Jillian continued, “You know, this all could have been avoided if you hadn’t lost your head.”

“I lost my head?” said Harvath. “Is that what you think happened?”

“I’ve seen it before,” she said as she continued probing for broken bones. “It’s a typical male reaction. You’re the hammer, and any problems you encounter in life are nothing more than nails.”

“Hammer this, lady,” said Harvath as he stood up from the bed and put his shirt back on. Even if he had managed to crack a rib or two, Jillian Alcott wouldn’t be able to tell just by touching him. And broken or not, there was nothing she could do for him. His ribs would just have to heal on their own.

“Sit back down,” ordered Jillian. “I’m not done examining you yet.”

“If you want to see any more, “He replied, walking over to the mini bar to retrieve a small bottle of Moskovskaya vodka, “you’re going to have to buy me dinner and tell me you love me first.”

Jillian smiled. “That’s not what I meant.”

“I know what you meant, “He said as he poured the vodka into a glass and looked around for some ice. “Let’s get back to Hannibal.”

Jillian picked the ice pack up off the bed and threw it to him. Harvath untied the bag, removed a couple of cubes, and dropped them into his glass. “I’m all ears.”

“There isn’t much else to add. Like Vanessa said, what we know about Hannibal comes to us mostly from Roman accounts, and there aren’t many. We do know that he was extremely brilliant and would go to any lengths to get the ultimate edge. There was no one else like him.”

“I’ll drink to that,” said Harvath as he took a sip of Moskovskaya to kill the pain in his side. As he set his drink on the nightstand he asked, “What about the India connection? Is it possible Hannibal had contact with them?”

“There’s no arguing with those breastplates. Those are Azemiops feae vipers, no doubt about it.”

“How does the wolf image fit in?”

“Wolves were considered very fierce, very ferocious animals. They were also a symbol of Rome. Hannibal might have been attempting to steal some of the Romans’thunder by using their symbol in that way.”

“Possibly,” said Harvath, though he had a feeling that theory was off the mark.

“What we do know,” said Alcott, “is that the weapon itself had to have been the most frightening thing he had in his arsenal. That’s why the Azemiops feae were depicted on the breastplates. He would have wanted everyone, especially his soldiers, to be constantly aware of the weapon they were carrying.”

“Are you saying that replicating poisonous snakes on arrow shafts and depicting Azemiops feae vipers on breastplates could be used to scare the enemy and embolden your own troops at the same time?”

“Exactly,” replied Alcott. “Once the snake plan had been announced, Hannibal ’s navy felt confident they couldn’t lose, even in the face of a much mightier opponent.”

Harvath sorted through the logic, trying to tie everything together. “So let’s assume that Hannibal got his hands on a copy of the Arthashastra.”

“Which would have been no small feat at the time. It was a pretty powerful book, and I doubt they were just giving it away on street corners, especially to nations that could wind up as potential enemies at some point down the road.”

“I’ll put my faith in Hannibal. He was a pretty crafty guy, but whether he bought the Arthashastra, stole it, or it was given to him doesn’t matter. Let’s just say he got a copy of it.”

“Okay.”

“Then he got hold of someone to translate it for him. Maybe he even brought some enterprising Indian scientist or soldier to the Mediterranean to help out with it. He could have even sent teams back and forth to India to get the snakes they needed, since Azemiops feae wasn’t native to the Greco-Roman world, and then used members of the Psylli tribe to handle them and extract the venom.”

“All possible,” replied Jillian, “but Vanessa said she’d been through the entire Arthashastra and couldn’t find a recipe that matches up with all the symptoms seen in Asalaam.”

“I know,” said Harvath, “but what if the Carthaginians only used the Arthashastra as a base or a jumping-off point of some sort? What if they came up with an Azemiops feae hybrid? What if they duplexed it and came up with an illness nobody had ever seen before?”

“Also possible,” said Jillian as she paused to think about it, “but where does that leave us? We have no idea where all of those artifacts came from, much less who gave them to Sotheby’s in the first place, and nothing short of a court order or official government request is going to get that auction house to open their doors again for us.”