Blowback

by Brad Thor

  “Zip it,” said Harvath, motioning with his weapon for the man to take a seat in one of the leather club chairs near the fireplace. “I don’t want to hear anything out of you unless it’s in answer to one of my questions. Do you understand me?”

  The Aga Khan sat down in one of the chairs, but refused to acknowledge him. Harvath fired another round, this one right between the man’s legs, which sent a clump of batting sailing through the air. Reluctantly, the Aga Khan nodded his head and murmured, “I understand.”

  “Good,” said Harvath as he sat down across from him, turned on the MP7’s laser sight, and painted the man’s knee with the small red dot. “Just so we further understand each other, this is exactly where my next shot is headed.”

  The Aga Khan nodded his head.

  Harvath balanced the weapon on his lap and kept the laser trained on the Aga Khan’s knee as he continued. “Question number one. Why did you kidnap Emir Tokay?”

  The man took a deep breath, and as he did, Harvath noticed the dark circles beneath his eyes. He looked terrible, as if he hadn’t slept in days. When he spoke, the clipped, powerful speech of a moment before was replaced with a tone of fatigue and resignation. “Why torment me? You know the reason.”

  “I have my theories,” replied Harvath, “but I want to hear it from you.”

  The Aga Khan looked at Harvath, too tired for games, but with no choice but to play along. “We needed him alive for the same reasons you wanted him dead, but of course you know this.”

  “I can guarantee you I didn’t come all this way to kill Emir Tokay.”

  The Aga Khan was confused. “You didn’t? Why not? You had all of the other scientists killed to ensure their silence.”

  It was obvious the man thought Harvath was working for someone else. “I’m here because I want to make sure what happened in Asalaam never happens anywhere else.”

  “Then you don’t work for him?”

  “Who is him?”

  “Akrep,” spat the Aga Khan, as if the name burned in his mouth. “The Scorpion.”

  It was a name Harvath had never heard before. “Look, I work for the United States government. Just tell me about Tokay and what happened in Asalaam.”

  The Aga Khan looked into the fireplace for a moment before responding, “I needed Tokay in order to defend my people from Akrep.”

  “How? What threat does this man pose to someone like you?”

  “It’s not just me. Akrep poses a threat to all Shia Muslims. I was foolish enough to believe that he had found a way to unite all Muslims, to bring them back together once again. But I should have known better. He was only using us.”

  “Using you for what?”

  “Money. Money for his expeditions, his grand search for the ultimate weapon that would allow the Muslim people to be on an equal, if not superior, footing in relation to the rest of the world.”

  “The Muslim Institute for Science and Technology,” said Harvath.

  “Exactly. The creation of which decades ago had been his idea.”

  “Who is he? What is Akrep’s real name?”

  “Who knows? What does it matter anyway? What I should have paid attention to was the one thing he couldn’t lie about—his history, the people from which he came. But because I didn’t, my people will truly suffer—all people will suffer. Only the Sunni will survive, and that is what he had planned all along.”

  “You say he couldn’t lie about his people. Who are they?”

  “They were once the greatest empire in the world. Hitler was fascinated with them and longed to achieve just a fraction of their power. Even your country has been drawn into their web without knowing it—Libya, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Iraq, the Balkans—they all have something very special in common.”

  They were all Muslim countries, but that seemed too obvious to Harvath. He reflected on the fact that all of those countries were home to very serious fundamentalist Muslim terrorist groups, almost all of which had some sort of ties to bin Laden. “Is there an al-Qaeda connection?”

  The Aga Khan brushed the suggestion aside. “This goes much deeper than al-Qaeda. Akrep created al-Qaeda and could get rid of them just as easily.”

  Harvath found it hard to believe that anyone could get rid of al-Qaeda, much less easily, and was about to ask how anyone could believe such a thing was possible, when suddenly his mind flashed back to the conversation he had had with Jillian Alcott just the day before. What did al-Qaeda want more than anything else? The establishment of a new Muslim caliphate. One nation, under Allah, headed by a caliph who would be the recognized leader of the entire Islamic world. “Akrep represents the hope of a new Muslim caliphate, doesn’t he?”

  The Aga Khan nodded his head. “One in which, as he put it to me in the beginning, Sunni and Shia would be represented equally.”

  “So what’s the web the U.S. has been drawn into? Libya, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Iraq, the Balkans—what’s the connection?”

  The Aga Khan leaned forward in his chair and said, “All of these places were once part of the greatest Muslim caliphate. A holy kingdom on earth that was unequaled in history and one which Akrep single-handedly intends to resurrect—the great Ottoman Empire.”

  SEVENTY-SIX

  T HE PRESIDENT ’ S PRIVATE STUDY

  T HE W HITE H OUSE

  W ASHINGTON , DC

  D amn it, Chuck,” said Jack Rutledge, who hadn’t slept in two days. He punched the remote and turned off his television. “We’ve got a major terrorist crisis on our hands. I don’t have time for this Mickey Mouse stuff. I thought we agreed you were going to take care of this.”

  “We’ve been trying, Mr. President.”

  “So why the hell do I keep seeing Helen Carmichael in front of TV cameras?”

  “She’s a senator. They constantly court the media. That’s what they do.”

  “Don’t give me that crap, Chuck. I thought you were going to talk to her.”

  “I did,” said Anderson. “And the DNC chairman.”

  “And?”

  “Carmichael fought it tooth and nail. Just like we expected her to do and—”

  “The DNC chairman promised he’d get to the bottom of it and clean it all up, right?”

  “Right,” replied the chief of staff, “but—”

  “Russ Mercer doesn’t take orders from our side of the aisle.”

  “No, sir, he doesn’t.”

  “What about Carmichael’s source within the CIA? Are we any closer to figuring out who the hell it is?”

  “A federal judge approved a warrant and we have the man we believe to be the leak under surveillance. Gary Lawlor is coordinating the investigation with the FBI and hopes to have something for us very soon.”

  “He’d better,” said Rutledge. “From what I hear, Carmichael is ready to go public with Harvath’s name and service photo any day now. What about the subpoenas she served us?”

  “Nothing to worry about. I’ve met with the White House counsel, and we’re going to ignore them.”

  “We are?” said Rutledge. “What kind of liability does that open us up to?”

  “It’s just an opening salvo. She knows she can’t compel us to appear. But word is Carmichael has had the Capitol police warm up a couple of the jail cells they have up on the Hill.”

  The president didn’t look pleased.

  “Don’t worry,” said Anderson. “It’s a media stunt. It makes for good television, but that’s all.”

  “I beg to differ with you,” said the president. “It makes for terrible television.”

  “As far as this administration is concerned, you’re right, but she’s grandstanding. She knows that no sitting president would respond to her subpoena. It’s all smoke. The only way she’ll be able to move this forward is to get enough consensus to appoint a special prosecutor.”

  Rutledge pushed his chair away from his desk and looked back out the window. “Do you want to remind me again why I agreed to run for a second term?”

&nbs
p; “Because the people want you,” said Anderson, “and because Carmichael couldn’t stick anything to you even if she had a roll of duct tape.”

  “I wish I could be as confident about this as you are.”

  “Trust me. We’re going to come out on top of this.”

  “Any word from USAMRIID?” asked Rutledge, changing the subject back to the one that he had been obsessing over ever since it broke.

  “No. Nothing new. The civilians who were exposed to the illness are still in quarantine and the CDC is working with the people at Fort Detrick, trying to come up with some answers.”

  “What’s your gut tell you, Chuck? Are we going to come out on top of this one as well?”

  “I don’t know, Mr. President.”

  “I don’t know either,” replied Rutledge, “and it scares the hell out of me. We don’t have much time left.”

  SEVENTY-SEVEN

  S WITZERLAND

  H arvath struggled to piece together everything he was hearing—not only from the Aga Khan, but also from outside the curtained windows where he could make out the sound of an approaching helicopter. Claudia and the rest of the team would not have had enough time to return to Sion and exchange their gliders for something better suited to land on the inhospitable property. All he could think of was that it must have been the Aga Khan’s helicopter coming to ferry him to a meeting in Geneva.

  The man studied the look on Harvath’s face and said, “I urge you to take what I’m telling you very seriously. The Ottoman Empire was the only power to ever fully unite the Muslim countries of the Mediterranean and the Middle East, and keep them united for over six centuries.”

  “But it eventually fell,” replied Harvath.

  “Only eighty-plus years ago, which in terms of history, especially Muslim history, isn’t even the blink of an eye. With the rapid advancement of science and Western technology, they were no longer strong enough to keep up a conventional fight. So, instead, they decided on a different course. They stepped back, allowed their dynasty to transform into what is present-day Turkey, and waited for the moment when they could return to reestablish their empire. Millions of Turkish people still greatly identify with their Ottoman heritage. The question ‘Kimsiniz Bey Efendi’ is still asked today as it was over seven hundred years ago during the caliphate. Who are you and what have you contributed toward the greater glory of our people?

  “A core Ottoman leadership still exists, though they don’t publicly use the term Ottoman to describe themselves. That being said, there aren’t many Turks who wouldn’t leap at the opportunity for their country to again be seen as one of the most dynamic social, cultural, and religious forces in the world.”

  Harvath had trouble believing what he was hearing.

  “The Ottoman sultans ruled through succession, through one family,” said the Aga Khan. “That family didn’t just disappear when the empire came to an end. A direct heir to the sultanate still exists. Someone who can trace his lineage back to the very first caliph and a history of Muslim strength and unity that will appeal to all Muslims throughout the Islamic world.”

  “And Hannibal’s weapon? The illness?” asked Harvath, less concerned with the history lesson than with getting the answers he had come for.

  “It’s all part of their plan to recreate the great Muslim caliphate.”

  Putting the pieces together in his mind was like trying to stack cinder blocks on top of wine glasses. He needed to bring things back around to the beginning. “How’d you go from being partners with Akrep to kidnapping Tokay as an act of self-defense?”

  “The expeditions carried out by the Islamic Institute were extremely expensive,” said the Aga Khan. “Hundreds of millions of dollars were being spent. The institute was always running low on money. That’s why Akrep came to me. He presented his grand plan for uniting all Muslims and asked if the Shia would help with the financing. We never intended for anyone to die.”

  “But the bioweapon was to be used as a means of ridding the world of all non-Muslims,” said Harvath, skeptical of the man’s professed naïveté.

  “The idea was to only use the threat of the weapon to scare the Western powers and their troops out of Muslim countries.”

  “And you believed that?” pressed Harvath. “Without some show that the weapon really worked, how could you expect anyone to take you seriously?”

  “You’re right,” replied the Aga Khan. “I soon realized that without proof, there was no way the weapon would be taken seriously. Because it possessed the abhorrent characteristic of needing to be reconstituted in human hosts before it could be used, Akrep suggested we conduct a trial somewhere which would eventually be discovered by the Americans.”

  “Iraq,” responded Harvath. “Asalaam.”

  “Correct. Not only would we be able to reconstitute the illness and bring it out of hibernation, but the aftermath would send a clear signal to the United States and its allies that they had a very serious new force to contend with. But I allowed myself to forget my history, “He replied. “Many Sunnis hate the Shia, but the Ottomans were the ones who gave birth to the idea that we Shia are worse than Christians.”

  “Yet you went along with them anyway,” said Harvath.

  “A chance to unite the fractures in our faith was something I could not so easily pass by. Besides, what Akrep was extending was no mere invitation to tea. The subtext was very clear: either we were with him and the Sunnis or we were against them. Based on the information that archeologist Ellyson brought to the institute about what Hannibal was carrying over the Alps, and how it could be used today, we had no choice.”

  “And you just sat back while innocents were killed in Asalaam. But, as long as they were Christians, what did you care?”

  “But there weren’t only Christians who were killed in Asalaam.”

  “What are you talking about?” said Harvath.

  “There were also Shias.”

  “Shias? I was told only non-Muslims perished.”

  “Then you were told wrong,” replied the Aga Khan. “Sunnis made up the majority of that village and they were the ones who survived.”

  “But how?”

  “Because the Sunnis believed the Shia were unclean and inferior in the eyes of God, they used separate wells from which to draw their water.”

  “So the illness was in the water?” asked Harvath.

  “The wells were only part of the process. Akrep never had any intention of bringing the Shia into a united Islam. He double-crossed me and imposed a death sentence on my people. That is why I had Emir Tokay brought here. We needed to know how to immunize our people. I would have arranged to bring more scientists here, but by the time we were able to identify who they all were, Akrep was already having them killed. Tokay was our last chance.”

  “And has he been able to help you?”

  “Insomuch as he had been able to piece together the pathology of the illness, yes. The Sunnis of Asalaam had in fact been inoculated before the illness was released into the village. A substance had been added to the water in their communal well. Absent exposure to that substance, the rest of the village, the non-Sunni population who used their own wells, eventually succumbed to the illness and died.”

  “So he put something in the Sunnis’ water. That’s one well in one village. In the rest of the world, most Sunni, Shia, and other religions share the same water source. I don’t understand how he plans on inoculating only the Sunni on a global basis.”

  “That’s simple. Akrep discovered a source of water available only to Sunni Muslims. From what Emir Tokay learned, Akrep claimed to have discovered a special spring somewhere in Saudi Arabia. To that water he would add the inoculation and make it available to only Sunnis.”

  “So he was probably going to bottle the water somehow. Do you know where this spring is or where he planned to do his bottling?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “How was he planning on getting it to the Sunnis?”

  “That
I also don’t know. I was never supposed to know. As I said, Akrep never intended to share the inoculation with the Shia. His goal is to rid the Muslim holy lands of all of the Western infidel crusaders, the Shia, and any other groups the Sunnis see as unfit to walk the sacred soil before setting their sights on the rest of the world. It’s no wonder Hitler thought so highly of them. The Ottomans are an amazingly cunning people.”

  The Aga Khan knew almost as little as Harvath did about the illness, so he decided to change subjects. “You said there’s an heir to the sultanate. Who is it? Akrep?”

  “No, in the Ottoman tradition, the heir has been sent away for safekeeping and will not be called until the caliphate is ready. For lack of a better term, Akrep is the power behind the throne.”

  “What power could he possibly have? He doesn’t even have an army.”

  “He may not personally, but Turkey does. And after the United States, it is the largest army in NATO.”

  “Are you saying the Ottomans can actually call upon the Turkish Army?”

  “Eventually they will be able to, but right now it doesn’t matter. They have something much more powerful at their disposal.”

  “Which is?”

  “Fundamentalist Islam. Wahhabism, to be exact. The radical Muslim movement from which all modern Islamic terrorism has sprung.”

  Harvath was all too familiar with the cult of Wahhabism and the sheer devastation it had wrought around the world. “So what are you saying? The Wahhabis are going to do the Ottoman’s work for them?”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes. The Wahhabis would love nothing more than to see the Islamic world united as a single body, not just religiously, but politically as well. Even before Osama bin Laden became their most recognized adherent, the Wahhabis were calling for the reestablishment of the Muslim caliphate. The attacks of September 11 were a wake-up call to Muslims to rise up and seize power from the corrupt and apostate regimes that govern them.”

  Once again, Harvath was transported back to his conversation with Jillian. “I don’t understand. How are the Ottomans going to use the Wahhabis? And what does it have to do with this illness?”