Blowback

“USAMRIID. The U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases,” said Jillian.

“You’re familiar with it?”

“Of course.”

Harvath hesitated a moment and then said, “I’d like you to go with them.”

“Me? Why me?”

“Because you’ve been through enough already. This is only going to get more dangerous, and I don’t think it’s right to ask you to stay with me.”

“First of all,” said Jillian as she glared at Harvath, “I’ll be the judge of what’s right for me, and secondly, you need me.”

Harvath knew he could move a lot faster without her, but felt he owed it to her to hear her out. “How do you figure?”

“We don’t know what the tissue samples we gathered will yield. They might yield nothing at all. Either way, you’re not going to sit around here waiting to find out. You’re going after Rayburn. You need to find Emir Tokay. At this point, he’s the only one who can shed any light on all of this. If, as we said before, he’s even still alive.”

She had him pegged. That was exactly what Harvath had planned, but he still saw no reason to save the seat next to him for the trip. “I still don’t understand why I need you for any of that.”

“Emir contacted me because he had pieces of a puzzle he couldn’t put together. If he’s still alive, he might still need my expertise to sort this all out.”

“And if he’s not?”

“If he’s not and you manage to locate Rayburn, I’m guessing Rayburn will be sitting on all of Dr. Ellyson’s papers. That includes the Silenus manuscript and heaven knows what else. You’re going to need somebody who can sort through all of that and decipher the most relevant documents as quickly as possible. You can’t do this without me, Scot, and you know it.”

Not only did Harvath know it, but he hated it. Though she had proven herself quite capable, she wasn’t an operator, and the assignment was about to get a lot more dangerous. It was shades of Meg Cassidy all over again, except this time the civilian that fate was forcing him to bring with him into battle didn’t have the luxury of several weeks’ training with the best the intelligence community had to offer. All Jillian Alcott had was him.

“If I can arrange for Vanessa and Alan to be taken to USAMRIID,” said Harvath, “will you back me up on it and encourage them to go?”

Jillian thought about it a moment and replied, “If that’s the only way they can be completely secure, then yes, I’ll back you up on it.”

Harvath glanced at his Kobold Phantom Chronograph and calculated the time difference between Italy and Washington, DC. “I’ll need to make a couple of calls to get the ball rolling.”

“Does this mean we’re sticking together?”

“How can I say no? After all, I owe you my life.”

Jillian smiled. “I want to call Vanessa and Alan and talk to them before you do anything.”

“Okay,” replied Harvath as he lifted the phone off the nightstand and handed it to her. “The sooner we get this moving, the better off we’re all going to be.”

FIFTY-TWO

Yes, he’s right here,” said Jillian as she motioned for Harvath to pick up the telephone over on the desk. “I’ll have him pick up the other extension.”

Once Harvath was on, Alan Whitcomb asked, “How much danger are we really in?”

“Enough that I think it wouldn’t hurt to take a vacation for a little while,” replied Harvath in all sincerity. “As soon as we hang up, I’m going to get everything moving to get you two out of there.”

“Jillian said you’re going to have us taken to USAMRIID?”

“I think it makes the most sense. They’re the lead agency investigating the illness. We’ll ship the tissue samples directly there so you can start work as soon as you arrive.”

“A little more excitement than we had originally bargained for, but I think Mrs. Whitcomb and I are up to the challenge.”

“Good,” said Harvath. “Then I’ll let you go so I can get things started.”

“Before you ring off, I dug up something I think you should hear.”

“What is it?”

“A few days ago, when you said that everyone who comes in contact with this mystery illness ends up acting like vampires, it got me thinking. The Iraqis in that village, the foreign aid workers who were trying to help them-that’s exactly how they were acting.”

“Come on, Alan,” said Harvath, “are you going to tell me that what we’re dealing with is an outbreak of vampirism?”

“Close,” said Whitcomb. “I think what we’re really dealing with here is an outbreak of rabies.”

Images of the breastplates and the scenes carved along the wooden box they had found in the ice cave rushed to the forefront of Harvath’s mind. Not wolves, dogs. “Why rabies?” asked Harvath as he tried to piece it all together.