Blowback

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.”