The Solomon Effect

by C. S. Graham

  He saw October hit the sidewalk, saw a line of bullets rip the chest of her kafiya-draped escort even as the young Palestinian drew his MAC10 and returned fire.

  “Amin!” cried Abu Elias, pushing away from the window. Machine pistol in hand, he threw open the door, pausing only to shout over his shoulder at Jax, “You stay here.”

  “Like hell,” said Jax, snatching his phone from the litter on the scarred dresser top as he ran.

  They tore down the narrow steps and erupted into the street just as the Kawasaki roared around the corner. The body of one of the motorcycle’s riders lay sprawled motionless on the blacktop. A throng of shouting, gesturing men spilled from the line of cars blocking the street. Jax pushed through them, his heart hammering in his chest as he neared the spot where he’d last seen October.

  She was there, crouched beside the bloodied body of her young escort. She’d yanked the kafiya from around his neck and was using it to try to stem the flow of blood that darkened his ripped chest.

  “October. Thank God.” Then Jax saw the blood smeared across her arms and face and felt his stomach tighten. “Are you hit?”

  She shook her head, her attention all for her task.

  He grabbed her elbow, trying to haul her up. “You need to get inside,” he shouted over the wails and excited shouts of the crowd. “They may come back.”

  She shook her head, hanging back. “No. I need to help him. He saved my life.”

  “Tobie.” Jax tightened his grip on her, jerking her around so that she had no choice but to meet his gaze. “Listen to me. You can’t help him. He’s dead. Now will you get inside?”

  She shivered so violently her entire body shook. Nodding silently, she eased the Palestinian’s head to the pavement and pushed to her feet.

  When she still hesitated, Jax shouted, “Go!”

  Jerking his phone out of his pocket, he punched in the number for Langley, his narrowed gaze carefully scanning the excited, jabbering crowd as he listened to the call go through. “Matt? Your fucking mole almost got October killed! Find him. Now.”

  Kaliningrad, Russia: Thursday 29 October

  6:55 P.M. local time

  Andrei Gorchakove stared at the prisoner in the stark, brightly lit cell on the other side of the one-way mirror.

  He was a big man, brawny, with the thick red hair one saw sometimes in Chechnya. A couple of militiamen had pulled him over in the southeastern part of the oblast for speeding, then become suspicious when they noticed a photograph of Stefan Baklanov lying on the passenger seat beside him.

  Now, seated on a low stool, the Chechen had been stripped naked and doused with cold water, his wrists shackled in a painful position. As Andrei watched, the man shivered violently.

  “What does he say?”

  Andrei’s captain, a stocky man with a thick neck and low forehead and the broad features of an Ossetian, shrugged his shoulders. “He says the boy is alive.”

  “You believe him?”

  The captain, a man named Kokoeva, shrugged his shoulders. “He says what he thinks we want to hear.”

  “That’s always been the trouble with torture. It’s a wonderful way to get people to admit they’re witches, or heretics, or traitors to the Party. But it’s worse than useless when it comes to collecting real intelligence.”

  “We tried being nice to him. It didn’t work.”

  Andrei grunted. “What else does he say?”

  “We asked him what they took off U-114. He said he didn’t know. He said it’s not his business to know. When we pressed him, he said it was an atom bomb.”

  “After you suggested it was an atom bomb?”

  The captain frowned. “Yes. Why?”

  “Who does he say he’s with?”

  “Al-Qa’ida.”

  Andrei studied the man on the other side of the glass. Beneath the steady onslaught of the air conditioning, the man was slowly turning blue. “Did you suggest that, too?”

  “No. We suggested Chechen separatists.”

  “Did you run his fingerprints?”

  “No.”

  Andrei turned toward the door. “Do it.”

  55

  Beirut, Lebanon: Thursday 29 October

  7:15 P.M. local time

  “I shouldn’t have let you go by yourself,” said Jax, for something like the tenth time.

  They were walking along Beirut’s famous Corniche, the darkening waters of the Mediterranean lapping the beach beside them. A cool breeze blowing in from the sea brought them the scent of salt and fish, and fluttered October’s hair across her face. “If I were a man,” she said, putting up a hand to catch her hair, “would you still feel that way?”

  He thought about it. “Probably not.”

  “Then stop patronizing me.”

  He laughed softly as she turned away to stare out over the broad stretch of sand, deserted now in the gathering gloom. She said, “I always thought ‘Semitic’ was a linguistic division, not ethnic. Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic…they’re all Semitic languages, right? Although I have to admit, I don’t know much about Aramaic.”

  “Aha. A language she doesn’t speak.”

  She took a swipe at his head. “It’s extinct.”

  He ducked. “Actually, it isn’t. Christ spoke Aramaic, and so did the authors of the biblical books of Daniel and Ezra, which I suppose is why a lot of people think the language is extinct. But there are still populations in the Arab world that speak Aramaic, particularly in places like Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon.”

  “But if it’s just a linguistic division, then it wouldn’t have any effect on someone’s susceptibility to a disease, would it?”

  Jax shook his head. “Not necessarily. Language is turning out to be a pretty good reflection of the genetic relationships between different peoples. You need to remember that the division between ‘Arabs’ and ‘Jews’ is something new—and, some people would argue, artificial. Up until the twentieth century, people talked about ‘Arab Jews,’ the same way they talk about ‘French Jews,’ or ‘Spanish Jews.’ For well over a thousand years, some Arabs have been Muslims, some have been Christians, and some have been Jews. The original Jews—the ones from the Holy Land—are basically the same, genetically, as the Arabs. They’re all Semites.”

  “So if George Farrah is telling the truth…”

  “If Farrah is telling the truth and U-114 really was carrying a pathogen that is lethal to anyone of Semitic origin, then Homeland Security has this thing all wrong.”

  She glanced over at him. “You mean, because no Arab terrorists are going to unleash a biological weapon that kills Semites?”

  “Exactly.”

  “So who are we dealing with?”

  Jax let out a long breath. “I don’t know. At this point, there’s only one thing we do know for certain: whoever these guys are, they’re not from the Middle East.”

  He felt his phone begin to vibrate. Once he’d calmed down over the shooting outside the Hotel Offredi he’d given Matt a full report on October’s meeting with George Farrah. But Jax had few illusions about the kind of reception their new intelligence was likely to receive.

  Matt’s voice was gruff. “I passed your information on to the big boys.”

  “And?”

  “And they’re not buying any of it. They’ve got half a dozen detainees in dungeons from Guantanamo to Cairo who’ve confessed to plotting to set off an atom bomb everywhere from New York to Seattle.”

  “Under torture.”

  “Under enhanced interrogation techniques,” corrected Matt. “Everyone from the President and Homeland Security to the DCI and the DNI are convinced U-114 was carrying an atom bomb that a bunch of crazy Islamist terrorists are now planning to set off somewhere in the US of A.”

  “Shit.” Jax’s gaze met October’s. “Those stupid, bigoted sons of bitches.”

  Matt was silent for a moment. “You sure about this, Jax?”

  “Sure? No. But it feels right.”

  “The problem is
, we ain’t got no verification.”

  “I’m working on that.”

  “Well, work fast, Jax. Halloween is barely twenty-four hours away.”

  Jax clipped his phone back on his belt and stood staring out over the darkened sea. The last of the sunlight had faded from the sky, revealing a universe of brilliant stars. From the sidewalk tables of a nearby restaurant came the sound of soft laughter and voices, and the scent of fish sizzling in olive oil and garlic.

  “What is it?” said October, watching him.

  He glanced over at her. “You’re sure Farrah was telling you the truth?”

  She didn’t even need to think about it. “Yes. That man is genuinely frightened by the possibility of this disease getting loose. I think that’s why he agreed to meet me.”

  Jax said, “Did he tell you anything about himself?”

  She shook her head. “Not really. Just that his family was originally from Gaza. Why? Do you know him?”

  “Not personally, no. But I’ve heard of him. He’s been on our Terror Watch list for twenty-five years. He originally trained as a doctor in England, but came back here to work in the refugee camps.”

  “A doctor? That man’s a doctor?”

  “A pediatrician. He was living with his wife and three kids in Shatila back in 1982 when the Israelis first invaded Lebanon.”

  “Why does that name sound so familiar?”

  “We passed it this afternoon.”

  “So what happened?”

  “When the Israeli army reached Beirut, they completely surrounded both Sabra and Shatila. At that point, all the Palestinian fighters had been evacuated under a U.S. guarantee for the safety of the women and children they left behind.”

  “Oh, no,” she whispered. “Don’t tell me…”

  Jax nodded. “The Israelis refused to let anyone—man, woman, or child—leave the refugee camps. Instead, they sent in their allies, the Christian Phalangists.” Jax paused, and the silence filled with the relentless drone of the surf beside them. “Rape, murder, mutilation…You name it, it happened there. When night came, they lit up the sky with flares so the Phalangists could keep killing. By the time the Red Cross was finally let into the camps two days later, they found thousands of bodies, most of them women and children. No one knows exactly how many Palestinians died. A lot of the bodies were bulldozed into mass graves that have never been opened.”

  “And Farrah’s family?”

  “I heard he found his wife’s body, and one of his little girls. His son and the other daughter were never found.” Jax hesitated. “What was done to his wife was not pretty.”

  “Where was Farrah when all this happened?”

  “At a nearby hospital, taking care of a sick child.”

  She was silent a moment. “It explains why Baklanov approached him, doesn’t it? Not only does he have a powerful grudge against the Israelis, but as a doctor, he understands diseases.”

  Jax nodded. “It’s Farrah’s involvement in all this that makes me inclined to believe we really are dealing with a bioweapon. If Baklanov thought he had an atom bomb to sell, I think he’d have gone after a bigger buyer.”

  She swung around to stare back at the towers of the city’s skyline rising up beside them and ablaze now with lights. “Farrah said both the Israelis and the U.S. have bioweapon programs aimed at isolating ethnic-specific diseases. Is that true?”

  “I don’t know about the Israelis, but we certainly have one. We have had it, for years.”

  He was aware of her studying him through dark, troubled eyes. “How many years?”

  “I don’t know exactly. The bioweapon program itself goes back to the thirties. The Nazi experiments from World War II are the most notorious and well known, but they weren’t the only ones doing that kind of stuff. Everyone was into it. The Japanese had the biggest program. They actually used their bioweapons, in China.”

  “You think that’s where the Germans were sending this stuff? To Japan? As part of Operation Ceasar?”

  “They were sending the Japanese everything from jet planes and rockets to nuclear material. So I suppose it makes sense they’d ship them bioweapons, too.”

  “But…would something like that still be viable? After sixty years?”

  “I remember reading about some archaeologists who excavated the graves of the members of an early twentieth-century North Pole expedition. The explorers had died of the flu, and the archaeologists caught the virus from the bodies they dug up. So I’d say, yeah, it could still be viable.”

  She blew out a long, shaky breath. “And Homeland Security doesn’t believe any of this.”

  “Nope.” He met her gaze, and saw his own growing horror reflected in the stark, drawn features of her face.

  She said, “We need to find out exactly what was on that U-boat. But how?”

  He turned his back on the darkened sea. “I’ve been thinking. I know someone who might be able to help us. A guy by the name of Leon Ginsburg.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “He’s the father of Paul Ginsburg.”

  “As in, Paul W. Ginsburg, former secretary of defense? How can he help us?”

  “For one thing, he’s a doctor. And he was a prisoner at Dachau for three years.”

  “Where does he live now?”

  “Jaffa.”

  “Jaffa? As in, Jaffa, Israel?”

  “That’s right.”

  “So, how do you know him?” she asked, as Jax flagged down a passing taxi.

  “It’s a long story.”

  56

  Jaffa, Israel: Thursday 29 October 11:54 P.M. local time

  Leon Ginsburg lived in an ancient stone house on a narrow, crooked street that dated back to the days when Jaffa was a prosperous Palestinian port surrounded by the vast orange groves that had made the city famous. The orange groves were mostly gone now, the few that were left disappearing fast beneath the runways of Ben-Gurion Airport and the creeping urbanization that had made Jaffa a virtual suburb of Tel Aviv.

  It was nearly midnight by the time their taxi pulled up next to the house’s worn, shallow steps. A wrought-iron lamp set high on a coursed stone wall cast a pool of warm, golden light over a heavy, weathered door set into a corbelled arch. As Jax raised his fist to knock, the door swung inward to reveal a small, wizened man half lost in a bulky brown cardigan sweater, with thin white hair and wire-framed glasses he wore pushed down on the end of his bulbous nose.

  “James! I wondered when you were going to get here.” His liver-spotted, bony hand closed on Jax’s sleeve, dragging him inside. “Come in, come in. You too, Miss Guinness.”

  “James?” whispered Tobie, following Jax up the steps.

  “That’s right. James.” Leon Ginsburg closed the old door behind them and gave a soft laugh. “It’s his real name. James Aiden Xavier Alexander.”

  “There are only two people in the world who call me James,” said Jax, slinging an affectionate arm around the old man’s shoulders. “My mother, and Leon.”

  The old man huffed another laugh and ushered them down a narrow corridor. “I was Jax’s grandfather for two years, you know. Did he tell you?”

  The corridor erupted suddenly into a leafy courtyard surrounded by open arcades that loomed three stories above them. “No,” said Tobie. “He didn’t tell me.”

  “My son Paul was Sophie’s third husband.” He frowned. “Or was it the fourth?”

  “The third,” said Jax.

  “I don’t know how you keep them straight.”

  “I remember the earlier ones better.”

  With a soft chuckle, Leon spread his arms wide, indicating a grouping of chairs nestled in amongst potted palms and ferns. “Please. Sit. You’ve been traveling for hours. You must be hungry. I’ve asked my wife to fix us something.” The sound of soft footsteps brought his head around. “Ah. Here she is.”

  A woman bearing a heavy tray emerged from an open doorway beneath the far arcade. Leon rushed to help her, murmuring something to
her in Arabic as he took the heavy tray from her. She stood a good half a head taller than he, and was perhaps twenty years younger, with a plump face and green eyes and the discreet headscarf of a devout Muslim.

  “Good evening,” she said in lightly accented English. “Welcome to our home.”

  “My wife, Yasmina,” said Leon, his face breaking into a broad grin as he introduced them. “She is a professor of biology at Al-Quds University. Sixteen years ago this December, I heard a loud pounding on my door just after sunrise. When I peeked outside, there was this beautiful woman standing on my steps. She shook her fist under my nose and said, ‘My grandfather built this house. I was born in this house. By what right do you live here?’”

  Yasmina Ginsburg’s eyes twinkled with silent laughter as husband and wife shared a private smile. “What chutzpah!” he said, setting the tray with its load of homus and bread and olives on the table before them. “I was hopelessly smitten.”

  While they ate, they talked of Leon’s son, Paul, and the time Leon had spent in Washington. Then Leon drew a pipe from the cavernous folds of his cardigan and packed it with tobacco, his expression growing thoughtful. He said, “I may be old and feebleminded, James, but I’m not so far gone as to believe you came all the way here to visit this alter kocker just to talk about old times.”

  “You’re far from feebleminded, and you know it. I’m here because I need information.”

  Leon cast him a long, steady look, and kept tamping his tobacco. “You’re a spy. That’s what you people do—you collect information. What kind of information could an old man like me possibly give you?”

  “I need to know about the Nazi biological weapons program at Dachau.”

  “Ah.” Leon lit a match and held the flame to his pipe with an unsteady hand. “That’s a pretty tall order, James. The Nazis were working with everything from anthrax to smallpox, and God only knows what else.”

  “Did you ever hear of a disease that kills Jews, but is harmless to gentiles?”