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.”