Brad Thor - Blowback

On board the chopper, the medics stabilized Schroeder, treated the burns Harvath had suffered, then helped clean and redress the head wound of Silo One’s pilot. Harvath learned the man’s name was Wilhelm, and that in addition to motorgliders, when he wasn’t flying as a Swiss Air Force reservist, his area of expertise was private, long-haul business jets.

When asked if he was rated on the Cessna Citation X, Wilhelm smiled and nodded his head. Somehow, he knew exactly what Harvath was thinking. “They’ll want us to file a flight plan, you know.”

Harvath didn’t care. With all the turmoil caused by the fire at Château Aiglemont, it would be days before the Aga Khan’s pilots knew that their boss’s plane had been stolen.

As the Cessna Citation X raced toward Saudi Arabia at Mach.92, nearly the speed of sound, Harvath wondered how many sand dunes he was going to have to look behind before he finally found Ozan Kalachka. He knew the man had to be somewhere inside the desert kingdom. The only questions were where and would Harvath be able to get to him in time.

For her part, Jillian seemed more concerned with Scot’s condition than the condition of the ancient documents, which he repeatedly apologized for letting get damaged in the fire.

With no time for anything but the preflight check before they left, Jillian scrounged what she could from the galley-some crackers, a wheel of Brie, two jars of Caspian caviar, and a bottle of San Pellegrino mineral water-and brought it to him.

Harvath ate what little there was and then tried to concentrate on how the hell he was going to get the aircraft cleared to land in Saudi Arabia and avoid customs. He didn’t know anyone with any pull in the kingdom. Regardless of any potential fallout, it was time for him to contact Gary Lawlor directly.

While Jillian studied the pages retrieved from Château Aiglemont, Harvath used the jet’s onboard telephone to contact DC. He caught Lawlor on his encrypted cell phone and launched into everything that had happened.

“Claudia Mueller is going to be in some hot water with her superiors, “Lawlor remarked.

“I don’t think so,” replied Harvath. “Kalachka’s the one who pulled strings with his contacts in the Swiss government to get the rescue operation approved.”

“Either way, they still lost an operator and Tokay.”

Harvath squeezed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and fore-finger. “I know. “He didn’t want to think about what happened at Aiglemont, and how he had been conned by Ozan Kalachka. “What about the Whitcombs? Have they had any luck with the tissue samples we sent back?”

“DNA takes a long time to analyze, and ancient DNA even longer. But we’ve got an even bigger problem on our hands.”

“What’s happening now?”

“The virus, the illness-whatever you want to call it-has turned up here.”

“In the United States,” said Harvath. “How?”

“We’re still investigating. It seems to have originated with a grocer in Michigan who imports Muslim foods for his mail-order business.”

“How many people are infected?”

“Only a handful that we know of, and they’re quarantined, of course. But this thing is about to explode,” replied Lawlor. “Listen, Scot. The president has initiated the Campfire Protocol-we’re running out of time.”

Harvath didn’t want to believe what he had just heard, but he had worked in the White House long enough to know that the president probably had no choice. The illness had to be contained, and if they discovered nuking entire cities was the only way to do it, Rutledge would be left with no other choice. “Do they already have strike aircraft aloft?”

“They do. If this thing starts gaining ground and the USAMRIID and CDC teams can’t pen it in, then they’re going to go for ultimate containment.”

“How much time do we have?”

“There’s no way of knowing.”

“Well, if I can track down Kalachka, maybe we can head this thing off. Ultimately, he’s the only person left with the answers,” said Harvath.

“I agree, but you have no idea where he is.”

“We’re going to need help. We’ll have to reach out to somebody inside the kingdom-somebody we can trust. Somebody who can get us in with no customs and no questions and then help us get the information we need.”

Lawlor thought about it for a moment and then responded, “I think I might know the right person. Give me about twenty minutes and I’ll call you back.”

Harvath hung up the phone and poured another glass of mineral water. The smoke and heat from the fire had made him thirsty as hell. Turning to Jillian, who was still examining the documents that had been taken from Tokay when the Aga Khan had him kidnapped, he asked, “Have you been able to find anything helpful in there?”

“Maybe,” she said as she reread a passage from one of the folios. “Apparently, whatever the vaccine is, it works even after the onset of symptoms. Other than that, the rest of it just confirms what we already knew or suspected. Hannibal did in fact manage to secure a copy of the Arthashastra. He was fascinated with the Azemiops feae viper and the potency of its venom. The Carthaginians conducted countless experiments, combining derivatives of the venom with other chemical and biological components until they finally settled on rabies as the most deadly complement.”

“That makes sense, but how were they able to come up with a vaccine for it?”

“Probably by knowing the weapon’s key components.”

“Azemiops feae venom and rabies. Big deal,” responded Harvath. “We know that too, yet we’re no closer to uncovering a vaccine than we were when this whole thing started.”

“What the Carthaginians knew was the actual type of each component. They would have known how the venom was extracted and if anything else along the way was done to refine it. They also would have been dealing with a form of rabies that was current during their day.”

“But even knowing the key components, how did they make the leap to an actual vaccine?”

Alcott set down the parchment she was studying and said, “Man has always been fascinated not only with what kills, but also with what cures. Pliny the Elder, a Roman who was one of the foremost authorities on science in the ancient world, claimed that resin from giant fennel and a type of laurel known as purple spurge were effective at curing wounds caused by envenomed arrows.”

Harvath remembered reading something to that effect in Vanessa Whitcomb’s office. Nodding his head, he listened as Jillian continued.

“In the ancient world, it was common knowledge that people who lived in areas plagued with venomous creatures such as snakes and scorpions often developed some degree of immunity due to their constant exposure. Some believed that the breath or saliva of these people could cure venomous bites in anyone. In fact, there was a tribe in North Africa known as the Psylli who were so immune to snake bites and scorpion stings that their saliva was considered the wonder drug of its day. It was, in essence, one of the first forms of antivenin.”

“Do you actually think human saliva was part of Hannibal ’s vaccine?”

“It’s possible, but not very likely if it had to be mass-produced to protect his entire army. More than likely, the antivenin portion of the cure was created in nature somehow.”

“Created how?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the Carthaginians had discovered a way to expose livestock to a form of the venom and extract antivenin-much the same way we do today with sheep and horses.”

“And the rabies component of the cure?”

“We used to grow inactive rabies virus in duck eggs. These days we grow it in human cells in a laboratory, but considering what fifth-century B.C. Scythians knew about separating human blood plasma for use in their toxins, who’s to say the Carthaginians didn’t discover a similar method? The bottom line is that they were masterful at manipulating their environment and the world around them. We can’t underestimate any discoveries they might have made.”