Blowback

The early morning air was cool and markedly different from Riyadh as they descended the Citation X’s stairs. Jillian had worked through the night, analyzing her samples and conferring with the Whitcombs and other USAMRIID personnel back at Fort Detrick. Concurrent with their discussions, teams of FBI and Hazmat agents, warrants in hand, were busy raiding the warehouse of Kaseem Najjar, as well as the cash-heavy businesses owned by every name on the list Chip Reynolds had discovered in Prince Hamal’s Riyadh warehouse. Anything and everything that was suspect was placed into airtight containers and transported back to Fort Detrick for further analysis.

Based on the brain tissue samples from Hannibal’s elite guard, the Whitcombs had been able to confirm what Alan had suspected-rabies was indeed a prime component of the illness, and the elite guard had been inoculated against it. But inoculation against rabies alone only increased resistance to the illness-it didn’t make people one hundred percent immune. This information explained why one of the victims strapped to the ceiling of the Provincial Ministry of Police building in Asalaam-a former veterinarian-was still alive when the Stryker Brigade Combat Team arrived. Another part was still missing from the puzzle.

Hoping to buy time, USAMRIID and the CDC had ordered all first responders to be treated with hyperimmune antirabies serum. The Herculean effort to collect enough doses and have them shipped around the country as quickly as possible was now under way.

In the meantime, Harvath had held a lengthy phone conversation with Gary Lawlor. In the belief that standard rabies vaccine had just bought them more time, Lawlor officially bifurcated Harvath’s assignment. Not only was he to do everything he could to uncover both the source and any possible cure for the illness, but he had been additionally instructed to do whatever was necessary to prevent the assassination of the Wahhabi leadership, which all the political minds back in DC agreed would plunge Saudi Arabia into an all-out revolution.

For years, American military and intelligence strategists had been preparing for the possibility of a coup in Saudi Arabia. If the Royal Family was overthrown, a full-blown military operation, codenamed Sandstorm, would go into immediate effect. The plan called for mobilizing U.S. armed forces to slice the eastern Saudi province of al-Hasa off from the rest of the country and place it under American control, thereby preventing the Wahhabi extremists from occupying the world’s largest proven oil reserves. At this point, though, there was just one problem. The intense summer heat made it nearly impossible to fight in full chem-bio combat gear. Until they were inoculated, neither the U.S. nor any of its allies could fully field enough troops to put Operation Sandstorm into effect.

There was also one other problem. Though it had never been proven and was much debated after the Iraq WMD intelligence fiasco, Washington was well aware that Saudi Arabia had pumped over a billion dollars into Pakistan ’s nuclear program. Despite repeated denials by the Saudis, there were many who were willing to stake their careers on their belief that in exchange for their generous contributions to Pakistani scientific advancement, the Saudis received one or more nuclear weapons.

Though Gary Lawlor was reluctant to heap more upon Harvath, he had no choice. Equally as important as getting to the bottom of halting the illness was preventing the Royal House of Saud from losing its grip on power.

Not knowing who might be plotting against the kingdom from the inside, Lawlor was afraid to reach out to anyone in the local diplomatic or intelligence food chain on Harvath’s behalf. It was common knowledge that the office of the Saudi Crown Prince leaked worse than a sieve, so a direct call from the president was out of the question. Finding someone they could trust and who would cooperate with them to get Harvath inside would take time, and time was something they were very quickly running out of. Harvath, though, had an idea and knew someone who might be able to make it happen and make it happen fast-Chip Reynolds.

Coached by Harvath on exactly what to say, Reynolds had played the best card at his disposal. Following Harvath’s script word-for-word, Reynolds contacted one of the few honest men he knew in the Crown Prince’s court-a man he hoped wasn’t involved with any attempts at overthrowing the al-Sauds-and told him that he needed an immediate audience. With the seriousness of the summit looming over them, the advisor was reluctant to even broach the subject with the Crown Prince, but with Harvath signaling for him to keep going, Reynolds pressed on.