by Gregg Loomis
“That is both true and not true, Mr. Reilly. I think I mentioned ethnic immunities, such as to malaria. I know of no case, though, where an acquired immunity, such as that attributed to King Mithradates, has been inherited. But that does not mean it is impossible. Only that it has not been observed. The science of gene transferal and genetic engineering is where in vitro fertilization was, say, half a century ago.”
Lang leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Let me ask you a hypothetical question, Doctor. Assume that a young boy on the northern coast of Turkey is bitten by a poisonous snake. Also assume that, other than the puncture wounds, he suffers no ill effects. Assume further that he comes from a small sub-ethnic group in an area where Mithradates and his famed immunity once reigned in the first century B.C. Now, given those facts, Doctor, would you say it was possible that boy’s immunity was inherited? And if so, could that trait, immunity, relate all the way back?”
The doctor looked puzzled.
“You will have to forgive him,” Gurt spoke after her long silence. “He is a lawyer. They ask questions that way.”
Dr. Kalonimos’s lips moved without words as she composed an answer. “For what you describe to happen, there would have to have been a unique event, perhaps mutation of the DNA that would change the genes.”
“Once that took place, would the gene, the one of immunity, be something that could be inherited?”
She shrugged, overawed by the number of assumptions. “I suppose so. Once the DNA mutates, I would suppose almost anything is possible.”
“What causes a mutation?”
“Well, there any number of mutations, such as a point mutation in which there is a simple change in sequence, a frame shift where one or more bases are inserted or deleted, a . . .”
Lang held up a hand, stop. “Okay, okay! What causes these events?”
“A variety of things, known and unknown. A mistake a cell makes in copying itself, some environmental factors . . .”
Again the stop sign. “If environment can cause a change in DNA, then is it possible Mithradates’ immunizing himself by exposure to various toxins was such a change in his environment?”
Dr. Kalonimos nodded slowly. “I suppose it is possible.”
Lang leaned forward again. “And if it became part of his DNA, then it would not be surprising if his descendants have the same immunities, right?”
She nodded again. “No more than Africans’ immunity to malaria.”
“Then,” Lang said, almost to himself, “the question becomes how does the DNA become transferrable from a blood sample?”
CHAPTER 56
Rhodes Town
Thirty Minutes Later
The waiter sat a frosty carafe of white Greek wine on the table. “Semeli, from Nemea,” he assured Gurt and Lang. “You will enjoy.”
Lang didn’t want to think how often that promise had proved hollow. Instead, he nodded knowledgeably.
“You are familiar with this wine?” Gurt asked.
“Only in that it probably would make a decent paint remover. The Greeks make great beer. Wine, not so much.”
“Then why did you order it?”
“Because that was what Dr. Kalonimos was drinking, and she survived.”
“Survival is your criteria for wine? Why not have another beer with your lunch?”
“Seemed we ought to at least try the local wine.”
Gurt gave him her patented and-they-say-women-are-not-logical look. “You will be okay? You quit the beer hours ago?”
“With something to eat, yeah.” He checked his watch. “Half past one, 13:30 local. Yeah, I’d say I’ll be fine.”
Lunch arrived. Gurt picked at her salad of greens, olives, and feta with vinaigrette. Lang had what could be described as Greece’s national dish, moussaka, a lamb and eggplant casserole. They ate without conversation until Gurt was chasing her last olive around the bowl and Lang gave voice to what they were both thinking.
“Well, we got an answer to the question of whether an immunity can be inherited.”
Gurt speared the last remnant of feta cheese. “You got an answer perhaps. You pushed her pretty hard, the way you might treat an enemy witness.”
“Hostile witness.”
“It is the same.”
Lang thought about that. Maybe it was. Maybe he had pushed Dr. Kalonimos into agreement rather than scientific fact.
His thoughts would have been less academic had he been able to see behind the northeast corner of the battlements of the Palace of the Grand Masters only a block away. Built as the last line of defense of the walled city, each corner was a crenelated tower, taller than any surrounding structure. Ideal for medieval archers, the turrets now also worked to conceal a man appearing to be a photographer with a huge telephoto lens.
Most of the palace’s visitors made quick note of the fortress’ exterior defenses before ducking back inside, out of the relentless sun. Fifth-century mosaics of the Chamber with Colonnades and Medusa Chamber could be viewed in the relative cool of stone walls over two-feet thick.
The temperature, though, did not seem to bother the man with the camera on the northeast tower. The 90-plus-degree heat would have been considered a mild spring day in his native land when the Loo blew across the plains of northern Pakistan and the thermometer hovered in the 120s at midday. And this opportunity was heaven sent.
He was far too engrossed in making the most of the opportunity that had come from Allah himself, a chance to put himself in command of the empire of the recently deceased Alkandres Kolstas. Had it not been the hand of Allah that had sent him to the Athens airport this morning to meet a business associate of Kolstas, a tribal chief from Afghanistan whose poppy production had been slipping? Truthfully, Kolstas suspected the man had found another buyer and had intended to use whatever means necessary to ascertain if this were true.
Kolstas’s man had arrived in the Athens airport yesterday afternoon ready to escort the visitor to Trikoupi Street. But right there at the airport was the American, Reilly, the man who had not only escaped a week or so ago, but made the boss look like a fool in the process. A quick phone call to the office in Piraeus informed him the boss had been killed, shot in the head like a mad dog, while a big blonde woman had somehow detained the guards posted on the street. A blonde like the one with Reilly.
The man on the palace battlements had worked for the Greek mostly as muscle, but he was not stupid. With Kolstas dead, the organization was leaderless. Whoever could step in, take charge, and demonstrate leadership abilities was likely to have the loyalty of the rest. And one way to demonstrate leadership would be to become the one who avenged the dead Greek. Ghesasn, the Koran’s, sanctioning slaying of those who kill a relative. Either kill the murderer, accept the blood money as payment for the life, or forgive. The last two were hardly options, and Kolstas was hardly related. As a good Sunni, the man at least gave thought to the teachings of the Prophet, peace be upon him. No time now to split theological hairs.
It was divine intervention that he had seen Reilly, the will of Allah that he should note the pair waiting for the Aegean Air flight to Rhodes. It was an act from paradise itself that there was a single seat left on the aircraft, never mind the visiting Afghan chieftain whose business with Kolstas was mooted by the Greek’s death. In the jumble of traffic, following their taxi to the old town unobserved had been child’s play. At the inflated price offered, a passing Japanese tourist had gleefully sold him one of the multiple cameras hanging from his neck like a pagan necklace. He had, of course, chosen the one with the biggest telephoto lens. Taking pictures would draw far less attention than a pair of binoculars, and he had no intention of getting close to Reilly until he was ready to strike.
But where?
The taverna where Reilly and the woman were having lunch would be ideal. Reilly was seated, a position from which it would be difficult to defend himself, even if he somehow anticipated the attack at the last moment. With terrified diners scattering in all
directions, escape should be easy.
He swept the open dining area with the lens.
No. Only one entrance and exit, though. With over a hundred potentially terrified people trying to get out at once, he could be trapped.
The adjacent street, the Street of the Knights?
Crowded, but a possibility. Open at both ends with several medieval alleys connecting. And that street was the only exit from where the pair were dining.
He replaced the lens cap and went inside to the double staircase that led to the first floor and outside.
CHAPTER 57
Offices of Dystra Pharmaceuticals
Atlanta, Georgia
At the Same Time (7:32 A.M.)
To William Grassley, the paneled boardroom had become a scene from a recurrent nightmare. He knew it had been a little over a week since he and the executive committee — himself, Hassler, and Wright — had gathered here to discuss the latest failure to obtain what was now referred to as the Turkish blood sample. It seemed like yesterday.
What was anything but a dream was that the company’s stock languished in the low teens, a fraction of where it had been on the NASDAQ a year ago when hopes for the feted fat pill had been high. Those hopes had been hyped by subtle “news” releases that had sent both market and shareholder expectations soaring.
When the news of FDA non-approval leaked before entering the common domain, Grassley had sold over half his shares through nominees, straw men, and empty corporations. Potential insider-trading charges paled in comparison to certain ruin if he could not maintain the high lifestyle demanded by his trophy wife, his second marriage to a woman only a year or so older than the children by his first.
Besides, they only prosecuted high-profile people for buying and selling stocks with knowledge unavailable to the average investor, like Martha Stewart, right?
What was real enough were the ugly letters and e-mail he was receiving from stockholders, and the threats of closer scrutiny of his leadership qualities at the annual shareholders’ meeting this fall when his employment contract came up for renewal.
Ralph Hassler entered, opening the door to allow a woman carrying a tray with a coffee urn and cups to enter in front of him, “Morning, Bill!”
Grassley scowled at the unwarranted cheerful tone as Hassler settled into a chair.
“Thanks for joining us,” he said, his voice heavy with sarcasm.
As usual, Hassler was late.
The only other man in the room, Hugh Wright, acknowledged the latecomer with a begrudging nod.
“I’ll take care of that, Mindy,” Grassley growled at the woman arranging sugar, cream, cups, and coffee on a heavy mahogany sideboard.
She nodded and made for the door, Grassley shutting it behind her and latching it.
Hassler was filling a cup. “I hope we’re not here for more doom and gloom. Tell me there has been a positive development.”
Grassley returned to his place at the head of the table. “Actually, yes. Our people at Emory tell me the Yerkes Primate Center has had some success with a serum made from the Turkish blood sample.”
“Our people?” Wright wanted to know. “Hopefully more reliable than the welfare mother who alerted us to the sample in the first place.”
“That welfare mother, as you call her, was right on,” Hassler snarled, offended at anything remotely resembling a racial slur. “Hadn’t been for her, we never would have known about the sample and its potential.”
“And we wouldn’t have been complicit in attempted murder and kidnapping, not to mention a home invasion and multiple conspiracies.”
“I didn’t hear your protest . . .”
“Gentlemen!” Grassley was standing, hands outstretched, the peacemaker. “We’re pretty much all in the same boat here.”
Glaring at each other, the two combatants settled in chairs on opposite sides of the table, the stretch of mahogany an armed border between belligerent nations.
Grassley settled into his chair. “As I was saying before you two got into a pissing contest, it seems that blood sample has yielded a serum with potentially positive results.”
Wright’s fingers were entwined, his elbows on the table. “I suppose that’s good news, but unless we get our hands on it, how does it benefit Dystra?”
“That, gentlemen, is what we are here to decide.”
CHAPTER 58
Rhodes Town
Lang and Gurt exited the Taverna and turned left on the Avenue of the Knights, the Palace of the Grand Masters behind them. Ahead, the cobblestone road passed under a pair of Gothic arches before heading uphill as it turned onto the Soka tous Sokratous. They took Orfeos Street to St. Anthony’s Gate, the newest of the city’s 11 gates, having been constructed in 1512. There was little of historic interest in this, the northeast quadrant of Old Rhodes Town, and consequently, few tourists, although a number of open shops were bustling a few blocks away. Both turned to take a final look toward the harbor, searching the faces of the few pedestrians for any they might have seen earlier that day before crossing sun-seared grass, through d’Amboise Gate and onto a causeway leading to the twenty-first century.
“You notice him?” Lang asked.
Gurt was surveying the flood of traffic swirling along the streets of contemporary Rhodes Town, one more tourist competing for a taxi. “Dark-skinned, possibly Arabic, certainly Middle Eastern. Could be one of Kolstas’s Pakistanis. Was pretending to take pictures.”
“Pretending?”
“You saw it, too: the lens cap was on.”
Lang had noticed. He simply wanted confirmation he had not been mistaken.
As one, they turned and re-entered the towering stone of St. Anthony’s Gate, passing into one more cobblestone street. Although the truly medieval section of town was blocks away, there were enough twists, turns, intersections, and alleys here to confuse your average laboratory rat. Instead of stone facades of a city built with defense in mind, open shops displayed local art and products. Pottery, decorative tiles, lace, and embroidery loaded shelves and counters.
One or more cruise boats had docked in the large harbor, as evidenced by passengers in uniform white socks and sneakers, sunburns, and t-shirts from the previous island. Milling about in search of souvenirs or gifts, they screened the man with the camera.
He thanked Allah for the sudden infusion of people. Unlike the confined taverna, cross streets and alleys would provide a perfect escape route among the confusion and panic the very public execution of Reilly would cause. He let the heavy camera hang from his neck as his hand slid into a pants pocket to assure him the switchblade was still there. All he had to do was brush up against his victim, a seemingly accidental contact in a crowded area. Slide the blade upward between the top two or three ribs, and walk away. An excellent chance he would be gone before anyone realized what had happened. Easy, perhaps too easy . . .
Likewise, the new arrivals were going to provide cover for Reilly and the woman, make it more difficult to keep them in sight. One moment they were hand-in-hand, examining a string of agate, sard, and amethyst, a replica of a bead necklace pictured as being taken from an ancient tomb. In the next instant, the woman alone was admiring wood carvings hanging from the ceiling of a shop across from the dark of an intersecting alley.
Where had Reilly gone?
The man quickly stepped across the mouth of an alley, the one with the woman on the other side. Reilly wasn’t to the right or left.
Which meant he had to be . . .
From the alley, an arm encircled his neck, dragging him into confines so narrow it was doubtful the sun ever dispersed the shadows. The suddenness of the attack deprived him of any chance of defense.
The arm around his neck was tightening. His ears were ringing and eyesight was dimming. His struggles to loosen the strangling grasp were weakening.
A voice, dream-like to his oxygen-starved brain, whispered, “Give it up, asshole. Keep resisting and you’ll be dead in another minute, if I don’t bre
ak your neck first.”
He did quit resisting. Not from choice but necessity. The lack of air caused by the compression of his trachea was making the dingy alley even darker. His knees buckled, no longer willing to support him. With a fluidity that all but belied a spine, he slumped to the ground.
Behind him, Lang released the chokehold, the hold using the crook of the elbow to squeeze the neck with pressure applied by the opposite hand on the wrist, the figure four as it had been known in Agency training.
He was on the back of the man on the ground almost as soon as he fell. Hands searched pockets while the man coughed his way back from the near dead. Lang’s fingers closed around the knife.
He flicked the blade open and dashed it against the stone of the alley. It took three attempts before the steel yielded, breaking off just above the handle.
Lang stood.
The would-be assassin was on hands and knees, still gasping as though each breath might well be his last.
Dropping the now-useless knife, Lang turned his attention to him. “Who sent you?”
The reply was unintelligible, either because of the speaker’s panting or because Lang didn’t understand the language. The tone, however, suggested an anatomical impossibility in any tongue.
Lang repeated the question with the same result.
He looked at the rectangle of sunlight that was the mouth of the alley. So far, so good. No one had noticed what was going on in the twilight. The man was still on all fours. He took a step back and delivered a kick to the man’s side. Was it his imagination, or did he really hear ribs crack? There was no doubting the scream of agony.
“Okay, we’ll try again. Who sent you?”
The man was curled into a fetal ball on the ground. “Nobody,” he grunted.
“How did you find me?”
“Didn’t.” The voice was coming in gulps as if the words themselves were choking him.
Lang stepped back, beginning to swing his leg, a punter looking for no return. “Wrong answer.”