Blowback

Fool them once, shame on them. Fool them twice, double shame on them was Reynolds’s feeling as he removed the prayer mat, which, just as in his last visit to the warehouse, was wrapped around his Remington twelve-gauge tactical shotgun. The nice thing about this trip, though, was that unless the owners of the structure had changed the locks, Reynolds had his own set of keys.

Working their way around to the office at the rear of the structure, Reynolds tried several of the keys until he found the one that worked. With Harvath helping cover him with his H amp;K, Reynolds pulled his Remington from the prayer rug, and they quietly crept inside with Jillian right behind them. At the end of the hallway, Reynolds held up his hand and counted to three, at which point he and Harvath both swept into the office and found it totally empty.

Every desk drawer stood open and bare. Harvath checked the file cabinets and found the same thing. The entire place had been cleared out. Somebody had decided they didn’t want to wait around to see if the shotgun-toting Westerner was going to make a second appearance.

Motioning toward the opposite doorway, Harvath struck off into the warehouse and signaled for Reynolds to follow. When they entered the cavernous space, they saw that it too had been completely cleared out. All that was left was a battered forklift with two flat tires, a few stacks of discarded pallets, and other assorted pieces of trash. By the looks of it, no one would ever have known the space had been recently occupied. Bending over to get a closer look at one of the pieces of garbage, Harvath heard Jillian say, “Whatever you do, don’t touch anything.”

Harvath immediately drew his hand back. Wearing a pair of surgical gloves from the plane’s first aid kit and using some plastic trash bags she had brought with her from the galley, Jillian began combing the warehouse gathering samples. As she did, Harvath continued his examination of the premises.

In the far corner, he came across a stack of pallets that at some point had been knocked over. Whoever had been clearing the place out must have been in an awfully big hurry, because they failed to recognize that something had been caught underneath. Using the toe of his boot to kick the pallets out of the way, Harvath uncovered a large cardboard box with what appeared to be a military uniform of some sort inside.

Mindful of the how the British provided American Indians blankets infected with smallpox, Harvath called Jillian and her latex gloves over to help him check it out.

As she approached, he could see from the bags she carried that she had already collected quite a few samples. “Look at these,” she said excitedly as she held up a pair of matching water bottles. “Muslim holy water from a sacred spring near Mecca.”

Harvath stared at the Arabic writing on the front of the bottles and asked, “You can read Arabic?”

Jillian shook her head. “It’s written in English and about eleven other different languages on the back. Whoever bottled these was planning for some major exporting. We’re going to need to get the water tested, but we may have just found how the Ottomans planned on getting the cure to the Sunni faithful.”

“Now if we can just find the source,” replied Harvath.

Holding up another bag that she dared not open, Jillian added, “I’ve also collected several packets of what could be our elusiveinfective agent, but again, until we can test it, I can’t be certain.”

Harvath complimented her work and then pointed to the box he had uncovered and asked her to pull the uniform out for him.

“What is it?” she asked as she laid it across one of the pallets.

“The top half of a SANG uniform,” said Reynolds as he came over to join them.

Jillian looked unfamiliar with the term.

“It’s an acronym,” explained Harvath. “It stands for Saudi Arabian National Guard. It’s made up of tribal elements loyal to the Saudi Royal Family and is in charge of protecting them against the country’s regular armed forces or anyone else who might try to push them from power.”

“Why would one of those uniforms be here?”

Harvath thought back to what Kalachka had said to him-Killing the most prominent members of the Saudi Royal Family wouldn’t cause outrage in the streets; in fact, people would be dancing for joy. Instead, the Royal Family is going to kill the top members of the Wahhabi leadership-and Harvath now knew how it was going to happen. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

“I’ve got all I need,” said Jillian as she reattached the niqab across her face, gathered up her sample bags, and prepared to head outside.

Reynolds toggled the transmit button on his radio and tried to raise Zafir for a situation report on how things looked outside, but there was no response. “Bluebird, this is Pelican. Do you read me? Over, “He said for a second time.

The uncomfortable feeling Harvath had had upon arriving at the warehouse returned to the pit of his stomach with a vengeance.