by Steve Berry
He'd never accepted what the press reported after the Biological Toxin Weapons Convention of 1972–that the United States quit the germ-warfare business and destroyed all of its arsenals. The military wouldn't discard decades of research simply because a few politicians unilaterally decided it was the thing to do. At least a few of those organisms, he believed, were hidden in cold storage at some nondescript military institution.
He personally found six pathogens that met all of the criteria. But sample 65-G failed on every count.
He first discovered it in 1979, within the bloodstream of the green monkeys that had been shipped for experimentation. Conventional science then would never have noticed, but thanks to his unique virology training, and special equipment the Iraqis provided, he found it. A strange-looking thing–spherical–filled with RNA and enzymes. Expose it to air and it evaporated. In water, the cell wall collapsed. Instead, it craved warm plasma and seemed prevalent throughout all of the green monkeys that came his way. Yet none of the animals seemed affected.
Charlie Easton, though, had been another matter. Damn fool. He'd been bitten two years prior by one of the monkeys, but told no one until three weeks before he died, when the first symptoms appeared. A blood sample confirmed 65-G roamed through him. He'd eventually used Easton's infection to study the viral effects on humans, concluding the organism was not an efficient biological weapon. Too unpredictable, sporadic, and far too slow to be an effective offensive agent.
He shook his head.
Amazing how ignorant he'd been.
A miracle he'd survived.
He was back in his hotel room at the Intercontinental, dawn coming slowly to Samarkand. He needed to rest, but was still energized from his encounter with Karyn Walde. He thought again about the old healer.
Was it 1980? Or '81?
In the Pamirs, about two weeks before Easton died. He'd visited the village several times before, trying to learn what he could. The old man was surely dead by now. Even then he was well up in age.
But still.
The old man scampered barefoot up the liver-colored slope with the agility of a cat, on feet with soles like leather. Vincenti followed and, even through heavy boots, his ankles and toes ached. Nothing was flat. Rocks arched everywhere like speed breakers, sharp, unforgiving. The village lay a mile back, nearly a thousand feet above sea level, their current journey taking them even higher.
The man was a traditional healer, a combination family practitioner, priest, fortune teller, and sorcerer. He knew little English but could speak passable Chinese and Turkish. He was a near-dwarf with European features and a forked Mongol beard. He wore a gold-threaded quilt and a bright skullcap. Back in the village, Vincenti had watched while the man treated the villagers with a concoction of roots and plants, meticulously administered with an intelligence born from decades of trial and error.
“Where are we going?” he finally asked.
“To answer your question and find what will stop the fever in your friend.”
Around him, a stadium of white peaks formed a gallery of untouched heights. Thunder clouds steamed from the highest summits. Streaks of silvers and autumnal reds and dense groves of walnut trees added color to the otherwise mummified scene. A rush of water could be heard somewhere far off.
They came to a ledge and he followed the old man through a purple vein in the rock. He knew from his studies that the mountains around him were still alive, slowly pushing upward about two and a half inches a year.
They exited into an oval-shaped arena, walled in by more stone. Not much light inside, so he found the flashlight the old man had encouraged him to bring. Two pools dotted the rock floor, each about ten feet in diameter, one bubbling with the froth of thermal energy. He brought the light close and noticed their contrasting color. The active one was a russet brown, its calm companion a sea foam green.
“The fever you describe is not new,” the old man said. “Many generations have known that animals deliver it.”
To learn more about the yaks, the sheep, and the huge bears that populated the region was one of the reasons he'd been sent. “How do you know that?”
“We watch. But only sometimes do they pass the fever. If your friend has the fever, this will help.” He pointed to the green pool, its still surface marred only by an array of floating plants. They looked like water lilies, only bushier, the center flower straining through the shade for precious drops of sunlight. “The leaves will save him. He must chew them.”
He dabbed the water and brought two moist fingers to his mouth. No taste. He half expected the hint of carbonate found in other springs of the region.
The man knelt and gulped a cupped handful. “It is good,” he said, smiling. He drank, too. Warm, like a cup of tea, and fresh. So he slurped more.
“The leaves will cure him.”
He needed to know. “Is this plant common?”
The old man nodded. “Only ones from this pool work.”
“Why is that?”
“I do not know. Perhaps divine will.”
He doubted that. “Is this known to other villages? Other healers?”
“I am the only one who uses it.”
He reached down and pulled one of the floating pods closer, assessing its biology. It was a tracheophyta, the leaves peltate with the stalk and filled with an elaborate vascular system. Eight thick, pulpous stipules surrounded the base and formed a floating platform. The epidermal tissue was a dark green, the leaf walls full of glucose. A short stem projected from the center and probably acted as a photosynthetic surface because of the limited leaf space. The flower's soft white petals were arranged in a whorl and emitted no fragrance. He glanced underneath. A raccoon tail of stringy, brown roots extended out in the water, searching for nutrients. From all appearances, it seemed a well-adapted species.
“How did you learn that it worked?”
“My father taught me.”
He lifted the plant from the water and cradled the pod. Warm water seeped through his fingers.
“The leaves must be chewed completely, the juice swallowed.”
He broke off a clump and brought it to his mouth. He looked at the old man–rapier eyes staring back quiet and confident. He stuffed the leaf in his mouth and chewed. The taste was bitter, sharp, like alum–and terrible, like tobacco.
He extracted the juice and swallowed, almost gagging.
FIFTY-FIVE
VENICE
CASSIOPEIA'S ATTENTION WAS DRAWN FIRST ACROSS THE NAVE TO the north transept where somebody was shooting at Malone. Beyond the waist-high railing she'd seen the head and chest of one of the guards, but not Malone. Then she'd watched as Zovastina fired her weapon, the bullet careening off the marble floor inches from Thorvaldsen. The Dane had stood his ground, never moving.
Movement to her right drew her attention. A man appeared in the stairway arch, gun in hand. He spotted her and raised his weapon, but never gained the chance to fire. She shot him in the chest.
He was thrown back, arms flailing. She finished the kill with one more well-placed shot. Across the nave, forty meters away, she saw the other guardsman advancing deeper into the museum's exhibits. She unshouldered the bow and found an arrow, but kept a position back from the railing so as not to give Zovastina a chance at her.
She was concerned. Just before the attacker appeared, Viktor had disappeared below into the lower transept. Where had he gone?
She mated the arrow's nock to the bowstring and gripped the bow's handle. She retracted the string.
The guard winked in and out through the dim light of the opposite transept. MALONE WAITED. HIS GUN WAS DRAWN, ALL HE NEEDED WAS FOR the
guardsman to advance a few feet closer. He'd managed to retreat to the end cap of one of the exhibits, using the shadows for protection, his steps light on the wood flooring, three gunshots from out in the nave masking his movements. Impossible to say where they'd originated since the resounding echoes camouflaged any sense of direction. He really didn't
want to shoot the guard.
Booksellers, generally, did not kill people.
But he doubted there was going to be much choice.
He drew a breath and made his move.
ZOVASTINA STARED AT HENRIK THORVALDSEN AS MORE GUNSHOTS erupted above. Her thirty minutes alone in the basilica had turned into a crowded mélange. Thorvaldsen motioned to the wooden box on the floor. “Not what you expected, was it?”
She decided to be honest. “Worth a try.”
“Ptolemy's riddle could be a hoax. People have searched for Alexander the Great's remains for fifteen hundred years with no success.”
“And does anyone actually believe St. Mark was in that box?”
He shrugged. “An awful lot of Venetians certainly do.”
She needed to leave, so she called out, “Viktor.”
“Is there a problem, Minister?” a new voice asked.
Michener.
The priest stepped into the lighted presbytery.
She pointed her gun at him. “You lied to me.”
MALONE CREPT LEFT AS THE GUARDSMAN KEPT TO THE RAILING and moved right. He sidestepped a wooden lion attached to a carved ducal throne and crouched behind a waist-high exhibit of tapestries that separated him from his pursuer. He scampered ahead, intent on doubling around before the man had a chance to react. He found the end of the exhibit, turned, and prepared to move.
An arrow pierced the guardsman's chest, sucking the breath away. He saw a shocked look sweep over the man's face as he groped for the implanted shaft. Life left him as his body collapsed to the floor.
Malone's head whirled left.
Across the nave Cassiopeia stood, bow in hand, her face frozen, bearing no emotion. Behind her, high in the outer wall loomed a darkened rose window. Below the window, Viktor emerged from the shadows and moved toward Cassiopeia, a gun coming shoulder high. ZOVASTINA WAS ANGRY. “YOU KNEW THERE WAS NOTHING IN THAT tomb,” she said to Michener.
“How could I know that? It hasn't been opened in over a hundred and seventy years.”
“You can tell your pope the Church will not be allowed within the Federation, concordat or no.”
“I'll pass the message along.”
She faced Thorvaldsen. “You never said. What's your interest in all this?”
“To stop you.”
“You'll find that difficult.”
“I don't know. You have to leave this basilica and the airport is a long boat ride away.”
She'd come to realize that they'd chosen their trap with care. Or, more accurately, they'd allowed her to choose it. Venice. Surrounded by water. No cars. Buses. Trains. Lots of slow-moving boats. Leaving could well pose a problem. What was it? An hour's ride to the airport?
And the confident glare of the two staring at her from five meters away was no comfort. VIKTOR APPROACHED THE WOMAN WITH THE BOW. RAFAEL'S killer. The woman who'd just speared another of his guardsmen in the opposite transept. She needed to die, but he realized that was foolish. He'd listened to Zovastina and knew that things were not going well. To leave, they'd need insurance. So he pressed the barrel of his gun into the nape of her neck. The woman did not move.
“I should shoot you,” he spit out.
“What sport would that be?”
“Enough to even the score.”
“I'd say we're even. Ely, for your partner.”
He fought a rising anger and forced his mind to think. Then an idea dawned. A way to bring the situation back under control. “Move to the railing. Slowly.”
She strode three steps forward.
“Minister,” he called out over the balustrade.
He glanced past his captive and saw Zovastina looking up, her gun still pointed at the two men.
“This one,” he said to her, “will be our pass out of here. A hostage.”
“Excellent idea, Viktor.”
“She doesn't know what a mess you've made, does she?” the woman whispered to him.
“You'll die before uttering the first word.”
“Not to worry. I won't tell her.”
MALONE SAW CASSIOPEIA'S PREDICAMENT. HE SPRANG TO THE railing and aimed his gun across the nave.
“Toss it down,” Viktor called out.
He ignored the command.
“I'd do as he says,” Zovastina said from below. Her gun was still trained on Michener and Thorvaldsen. “Or I will shoot these two.”
“Supreme Minister of the Central Asian Federation committing murder in Italy? I doubt it.”
“True,” Zovastina said. “But Viktor can easily kill the woman, which should not be a problem for me.”
“Toss it,” Cassiopeia said to him.
He realized that to comply was foolish. Just retreat into the shadows and remain a threat.
“Cotton,” Thorvaldsen said from below, “do as Cassiopeia says.”
He had to trust that both his friends knew what they were doing. Wrong? Probably. But he'd done stupid things before.
He allowed the pistol to drop over the railing.
“BRING HER DOWN,” ZOVASTINA CALLED OUT TO VIKTOR. “YOU,” she said to the other man who'd just tossed away his gun. “Come here.”
He did not move from his perch.
“Please, Cotton,” Thorvaldsen said. “Do as she says.”
A hesitation and the man disappeared from the railing.
“You control him?” she asked.
“No one does.”
Viktor and his female captive entered the presbytery. The other man, the one Thorvaldsen commanded, followed them a moment later.
“Who are you?” she asked him. “Thorvaldsen called you Cotton.”
“Name's Malone.”
“And you?” she said, staring at the woman with the archer's bow.
“A friend of Ely Lund.”
What was happening? She desperately needed to know, so she thought fast and motioned at Viktor's female captive. “That one is coming with me. To ensure safe passage.”
“Minister,” Viktor said. “I think it would be better if she stays here, with me. I can hold her until you're away.”
She shook her head and pointed at Thorvaldsen. “Take him with you. Somewhere safe. Once I'm in the air, I'll call and you can let him go. Any problems, kill him and make sure the body is never found.”
“Minister,” Michener said, “since I'm the cause of all this chaos, how about me as a hostage and let's leave this gentleman out of it.”
“And how about taking me with you instead of her?” Malone asked. “Never been to the Central Asian Federation.”
She appraised the American. Tall and confident. Probably an agent. But she wanted to know more of the woman's connection to Ely Lund. Anyone who knew Lund closely enough to risk her life to avenge him bore further investigation. But Michener. She could only hope Viktor was allowed the opportunity to kill the lying scum. “All right, priest, you go with Viktor. As for you, Mr. Malone, perhaps another time.”
FIFTY-SIX
SAMARKAND
VINCENTI AWOKE.
He was reclined in the helicopter's comfortable leather seat. Flying east, away from the city. The phone lying in his lap was vibrating.
He read the LCD screen. Grant Lyndsey. Chief scientist at the China lab. He stuffed a fob into his ear and pushed “Phone.”
“We're done,” his employee said to him. “Zovastina has all of the organisms and the lab is converted. Clean and complete.”
With what Zovastina had planned, he had no intention of the West, or the Chinese government, raiding his facility and linking him to anything. Only eight scientists had worked on the project, Lyndsey their head. All vestiges of their work were now gone.
“Pay everyone and send them on their way. O'Conner will visit them and provide for their retirement.” He heard the silence from the other end of the phone. “Not to worry, Grant. Gather the computer data and head to my house over the border. We'll have to wait and see what the Supreme Minister actually does with her arsenal before we act
.”
“I'll leave immediately.”
That's what he wanted to hear. “I'll be seeing you before the day is out. We have work to do. Get moving.”
He clicked off the phone and lay back in the seat.
He thought again about the old dwarf in the Pamir mountains. Back then Tajikistan had been primitive and hostile. Little medical research had ever been done there. Few strangers visited. That was why the Iraqis thought the region a promising place to investigate for unknown zoonoses.
Two pools high in the mountains.
One green, the other brown.
And the plant whose leaves he'd chewed.
He recalled the water. Warm and clear. But when he'd pointed his flashlight into their shallow depths, he recalled an even stranger sight.
Two carved letters. One in each pool.
Z and H.
Chiseled from blocks of stone, lying on the bottom.
He thought of the medallion Stephanie Nelle had made a point to show him. One of the several Irina Zovastina seemed intent on acquiring.
And the microletters supposedly on its face.
ZH.
Coincidence? He doubted it. He knew what the letters meant since he'd sought out scholars who told him that in Old Greek they represented the concept of life. He'd thought his idea of labeling any future cure for HIV with that ancient designation clever. Now he wasn't so sure. He felt like his world was collapsing and the anonymity that he'd once enjoyed was quickly evaporating. The Americans were after him. Zovastina was after him. The Venetian League itself might well be after him.
But he'd cast his die.
No going back.
MALONE'S GAZE ALTERNATED BETWEEN THORVALDSEN AND CASSIOPEIA.
Neither of his friends showed the slightest concern with their predicament. Between him and Cassiopeia, they could take Zovastina and Viktor. He tried to voice that intent with his eyes, but no one seemed to be listening.