Blowback

by Brad Thor

  There was an examination of Sophocles’ play Philoctetes, in which Hercules died in a Hydra-poisoned cloak, suffering many of the same symptoms as those associated with smallpox. Not only were the Greeks evidently aware that clothing and personal items could spread disease, but so were civilizations as far back as ancient Sumer in 1770 B.C.

  Harvath then became acquainted with the word fomites, a term used by modern epidemiologists to describe items such as garments, bedclothes, cups, and toothbrushes, which were known to possess the capability to harbor infectious pathogens. Regulations prohibiting citizens from coming into contact with known fomites went back almost four thousand years. Harvath was beginning to wonder if some sort of fomite was responsible for infecting the non-Muslim population of Asalaam.

  The articles Vanessa had printed out for him went on to describe other ingenious attempts at infecting an enemy, such as forcing him to camp or march through disease-infested swamps, as well as the use of “poison maidens”—seductresses with highly communicable infections, who were sent to do away with military leaders like Alexander the Great.

  Just as Alan had mentioned, there were also discussions about the poisoning of an enemy’s food and water supplies. Short of discovering how the victims had been infected, and by what, Harvath knew the only way to get to the bottom of the illness was for him and Jillian to discover who had kidnapped Emir Tokay. At this point, Tokay seemed to be the only one who could unravel the mystery.

  Harvath read through more articles, one of which detailed how, just as today, surgeons and scientists in the ancient world rushed to keep up with advancements in biowarfare. They were constantly trying to discover and develop new antidotes, treatments, and inoculations against the wide range of poisons and toxins that were being used against their soldiers and fellow citizens.

  The Roman writer, encyclopedist, and foremost authority on science in ancient Europe, Pliny the Elder, claimed that resin from giant fennel and a type of laurel known as purple spurge were effective at curing wounds caused by envenomed arrows. In fact, Pliny went so far as to claim that there was an antidote for every kind of snake venom except the asp—a highly venomous snake of the cobra family. Harvath wondered what category the modern world might eventually be forced to put Azemiops feae in.

  The article went on to list the efforts of citizens of the ancient world to develop resistance to snake venoms. It was widely understood that people who lived in lands home to venomous creatures such as snakes and scorpions often possessed some degree of immunity against their poisons. Bites or stings from these creatures were often nothing more than mildly uncomfortable for their victims. In some cases, local inhabitants’resistance was thought to be so significant that their breath or saliva could cure venomous bites in anyone. According to Pliny, the Psylli tribesmen of North Africa were so resistant to snake bites and scorpion stings that their saliva was considered a highly effective antivenin, and they were drafted for every campaign the Romans ever conducted on the African continent.

  Harvath was familiar with how antivenin was derived from antibodies to live snake venom, but he was amazed at how far people had gone over the centuries, often unsuccessfully, to immunize themselves against all sorts of toxins. Throughout the ancient world, people believed in ingesting small amounts of poison along with the appropriate antidotes to help develop full-scale immunity against whatever it was they wanted to avoid contracting.

  Harvath wasn’t surprised by the practice. Even today, many Southeast Asian nations still made their soldiers drink snake blood as part of their jungle training in the belief that they could become immune to snake venom.

  The one thing the ancients did that seemed to make the most sense, and which was still relevant in today’s world, was questioning captives about what kind of bioweapons their militaries were using and how to defend against them. That was the kind of scientific method Harvath could relate to—pure interrogation.

  “I think you two should have a look at this,” said Vanessa, interrupting Harvath’s thoughts.

  “What is it?” asked Jillian as she came around the desk.

  Vanessa leaned back so they could see her computer screen. “It’s a reply from someone on my paleopathology listserve. I put a question to the group asking if they’d noticed anyone taking any interest recently in our little purple viper and its connection to ancient biowarfare.”

  “And?”

  “Someone sent me this,” said Vanessa as she scrolled down to show the photo that had been included with the e-mail.

  Harvath watched as an ancient piece of armor, a breastplate to be exact, came into view. The leather straps were surprisingly well preserved, as were the only somewhat rusted clasps, but that wasn’t the piece’s most remarkable feature. Right in the center of the breastplate was one of the most interesting crests he had ever seen. Carved in relief was the head of a snarling wolf with two snakes wrapped around its neck—and not just any kind of snakes. Their bodies were made up of brilliant purple stones, while their heads were fashioned from oblong pieces of what looked like creamy white marble.

  “Who did the photo come from?”

  “It was taken by the wife of one of the paleopathologists on my server list. Her name is Molly Davidson. She works with Sotheby’s arms, armour, and militaria division in London.”

  “Sotheby’s? As in the auction house?” asked Harvath.

  “One and the same,” replied Vanessa. “A new client wanted the value of this piece appraised for auction. Apparently, Molly has had a devil of a time placing it in any sort of historical context, and when her husband received my e-mail regarding Azemiops feae, he had Molly e-mail me the photo. They thought there might be a connection and maybe we could help each other out.”

  Harvath studied the image more closely. There was definitely a connection here. “Does she have any idea where the piece came from?”

  “Originally? She thinks it might be from Carthage, probably around the third century B.C.”

  “But the Carthaginians were from North Africa in the area that’s now Tunisia. How would they have known about Azemiops feae? You said it was indigenous only to China, Tibet, Myanmar, and Vietnam.”

  “I did say that and it’s true,” replied Vanessa. “Azemiops feae is not a reptile that ever would have been seen anywhere near Carthage.”

  “So what’s the connection?”

  “Let me answer your first question. Carthage was originally a colony founded by the Phoenicians, who were great seafarers. Tyre and Sidon, Carthage’s two most renowned ports, are even mentioned in the Bible. In fact, the word Bible comes from the word Byblos, another Carthaginian port from which the majority of Egyptian papyrus was exported. Most early books were made from papyrus, and the word Byblos or Biblos became the ancient Greek word for ‘book.’

  “Just like their ancestors, the Carthaginians were incredibly adept merchants, skilled at buying and selling just about anything. Even more important, they were also extremely accomplished mariners and traded throughout the Mediterranean. Most scholars don’t believe they traded any farther east than Greece, but it’s possible. There are stories of Carthage foraying into Asia Minor and beyond via the monsoon trade route. If this is true, it’s conceivable that they could have come across the Arthashastra, as well as Azemiops feae and the knowledge of how to extract its venom. This, of course, is all dependent upon whether or not they did in fact establish some sort of trade relations with ancient India.”

  “Even if they did. What does that have to do with this breastplate?”

  “What do you know about the Carthaginian general Hannibal?”

  An adept student of history, Harvath replied, “He was one of the most brilliant military strategists of the ancient world.”

  “Correct,” said Vanessa, “and Hannibal was probably best known for his daring sneak attack on the burgeoning Roman Empire.”

  Harvath knew the story well. Hannibal had set out from Spain with approximately forty war elephants and, according t
o some reports, up-wards of more than a hundred thousand soldiers to launch his attack. All that stood between him and his enemy were the towering peaks of the French-Italian Alps. But, by the time he made it over the top and descended into Italy’s Po Valley, near present-day Turin, Hannibal had lost many of the elephants and more than half his men. While ambushes and skirmishes with marauding Gaulish tribes in present-day France and Spain accounted for a good amount of his losses, many more soldiers were lost to precipitous mountain paths, as well as numerous Alpine landslides and avalanches.

  “Not so well known,” continued Vanessa, “is a rumor that at the forefront of his forces, Hannibal posted members of his most elite guard. They were said to be transporting a weapon of unimaginable destruction—a weapon which would all but assure their victory over the Romans.”

  Despite his knowledge of the Carthaginian general, this was something Harvath had never heard before. “Let me guess, you think this weapon was biological or chemical in nature?”

  “Since we’re talking about Hannibal,” interjected Jillian, “most definitely biological.”

  “Why?”

  “Hannibal was one of history’s earliest and biggest proponents of biological warfare.”

  Harvath was stunned. “He was? What kind of weapons are we talking about?”

  “The best example I can think of, especially because it demonstrates his penchant for venomous snakes, happened sometime around 190 B.C. Severely outnumbered by the Pergamum navy, Hannibal sent men ashore to gather as many poisonous snakes as they could. They sealed them in clay jars, and when the Pergamum ships were within range, Hannibal’s men catapulted the jars onto the enemy’s decks. The jars shattered and sent the snakes in every direction, forcing the Pergamum sailors to abandon ship and giving Hannibal a decisive victory over a much larger foe.

  “If Carthage had developed contact with India, and from what we know of Hannibal’s aggressive pursuit of biological weapons, this all might fit together quite logically,” said Vanessa.

  “Well, I see a very obvious connection here,” replied Jillian. “Whoever wore this breastplate had to be wielding a weapon of some sort that used Azemiops feae venom.”

  “I agree with you about there being a connection,” said Harvath, “but how can you tell that whoever was wearing the breastplate was using a weapon that incorporated our venom?”

  Vanessa could see what Jillian was driving at. “Both the depiction of the wolf and the Azemiops feae vipers on the breastplate were meant as scare tactics. The ancients believed very strongly in the power of psychological warfare. Some were even known to carry banners into battle advertising the types of poison they would be using against their enemies.”

  “So you think the breastplates were an advertisement?”

  “Most definitely,” replied Vanessa, “and let me tell you why. Are you familiar with the Scythians and their archers?”

  “Jillian mentioned them.”

  Vanessa drew a quick picture on her pad and turned it around so Harvath could see it. “The shafts of the Scythians’ arrows were painstakingly painted to look like the snake from which the venom was taken. Even if one of these arrows simply landed next to you, the psychological effect would be enormous. It’s hard to believe, from a modern perspective, but these techniques absolutely terrorized opposing armies.

  “Tactics like these were in widespread use hundreds of years before Hannibal. It’s reasonable to assume he would have employed them as well. He was an extremely cunning warrior. We have to imagine he would have used every advantage to overwhelm his enemies.”

  “I agree,” replied Harvath. “Everything you’re suggesting is completely in keeping with Hannibal’s character. But where I’m getting lost is with this weapon of unimaginable destruction. I’ve read a lot about Carthage, but I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

  “Not many people have. That’s probably because everything we know about Hannibal comes from his enemies, the Romans. Once the Romans conquered Carthage, they carried out something they called the Carthage solution. They absolutely decimated the country, sold most of its people into slavery, burned all of Carthage’s libraries, and then, as a final assurance that the Carthaginians would never return to threaten Rome again, sowed every inch of soil with salt.

  “When it comes to accounts of Hannibal and Carthage, Polybius was regarded as the most reliable of Roman historians, followed by Livy, who was born one hundred fifty years after Hannibal’s march across the Alps. But what a lot of people don’t know is that there were actually two Greeks, war correspondents if you will, who were embedded with Hannibal during his march on Rome. One was named Sosilos, who wrote Hannibal’s biography, and another was named Silenus. Sosilos stuck to Hannibal like glue, studying the general’s every move, while Silenus, who was proficient in several languages, spent a lot of time among Hannibal’s various troops.”

  “And one of these Greek war correspondents made mention of this weapon of unimaginable destruction?”

  “Yes, Silenus did, as well as the crest on the breastplates worn by Hannibal’s elite guard.”

  “So where is this Silenus reference? Maybe we can learn something more from it?”

  “That’s the problem,” said Vanessa. “No one in modern civilization has ever seen it. The original was said to have been lost when the Library of Alexandria was sacked in 640 A.D. by Muslims under the Caliph Umar I.”

  “Any idea how long the breastplate has been in Dr. Davidson’s possession?”

  “Her e-mail doesn’t say, but the fact that she referred to it as coming from a new client makes me think it can’t have been that long.”

  Harvath was quiet for several moments as he pondered what their next move should be.

  “What are you thinking?” asked Jillian.

  “I think we need to get a look at that breastplate.”

  “And what exactly do you expect to glean from it that a foremost expert in the field hasn’t been able to already?”

  Harvath went back to the small Formica table and began gathering up his notes. “May I take these with me?” he asked Vanessa, as he motioned to a reference book and the stack of documents she had printed out for him.

  “Of course you may,” she replied.

  “Scot,” interrupted Jillian. “You haven’t answered my question.”

  Harvath accepted a rubber band from Vanessa to put around his stack of pages and said, “I don’t believe in coincidences. There’s some sort of connection here, and I want to find out who this new client of Sotheby’s is.”

  “Dr. Davidson won’t tell you that,” responded Jillian. “When it comes to the anonymity of their clients, Sotheby’s makes the Swiss banking establishment look loose-lipped.”

  “Well, we’re going to have to figure out some way around that,” stated Harvath.

  “I’m sure if you had an official from Washington contact Sotheby’s on your behalf they would—” began Vanessa, but she was interrupted by Harvath.

  “I can’t deal directly with Washington right now.”

  “Why not?”

  “Trust me, it’s a long story,” answered Jillian.

  Assembling his papers, Harvath looked at Vanessa and asked, “I’ll want to contact Mrs. Davidson myself and set up a meeting. Do you have a phone number for her in London?”

  Vanessa looked back at the e-mail on her computer screen and replied, “She’s not in London. According to this, she’s in France working out of Sotheby’s Paris office.”

  On the street below, that was all Khalid Alomari needed to hear. Harvath should never have allowed the Alcott woman to abandon her briefcase at the London department store. Just as her e-mail correspondence with Emir Tokay had led him to London, so had the hard copies of her correspondence with the Whitcombs led him here to Durham. As he packed up his parabolic listening device and climbed back into his rental car, Alomari decided he could come back for the old couple later. Right now, though, he needed to get to Paris. Somehow, a knot f
rom his past had come untied. Both the archeologist and the two Sherpas from the Alps were dead. He was sure of it. He had killed them himself, but the artifacts they had uncovered were now making their way onto the market. If he had any hope of collecting his money from the Scorpion and maintaining favor in his mentor’s eyes, Alomari needed to tie up his loose ends.

  As he drove away from the university campus, he wondered what it was going to be like to watch Scot Harvath die.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  P ARIS

  I t was easily the worst flight Scot Harvath had ever taken in his life. A severe storm had buffeted the plane all the way across the Channel to France. Even the most stoic of passengers had death grips on their armrests, and from where Harvath sat, he could see Jillian Alcott was on the edge of absolutely falling apart. For security, they had traveled separately on a budget carrier out of Newcastle International Airport. The British police would have been looking for a man and a woman traveling together.

  Once they were on the ground in Paris and had cleared both passport control and customs, Harvath finally breathed a silent sigh of relief. While he was traveling under an assumed name and a false passport, Alcott had only her authentic passport. The fact that she had been able to make it through without being stopped meant that the police must have still only had shots of her face to go on and hadn’t yet put a name to them. They had been lucky, but they couldn’t hope for that luck to hold out forever. They needed to make some headway, fast.

  Harvath normally liked Paris—the fashionable bistros of the Marais, the intimate cafés of St. Germain-des-Prés, the smoke-filled bars of the Latin Quarter. There was no city in the world like it, but as their taxi splashed through overflowing puddles on the way to Sotheby’s, the city seemed alien to him. There was something different about it—something just didn’t feel right. Maybe it was the lightning. Harvath had experienced all kinds of Parisian weather before, but never this.