Pandora's grave

Hamid’s mouth fell open. “Ya Allah,” he whispered in Arabic. Oh God. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“I wish I was,” Harry responded grimly. “That’s the opinion of the seventh floor. Could he have compromised Parker?”

“Harry, he’s one of us, he wouldn’t-”

“That’s not what I asked and you know it.” Harry’s voice was detached. Clinical. Cold as ice. “I didn’t ask for your opinion, I asked if he had the opportunity.”

“I suppose so. We weren’t together the whole time.” Hamid paused. “I still can’t believe it.”

“Neither can I. I suppose we’ll know for certain in a few hours. The boys from Intel are scouring Davood’s phone logs.”

The thought struck Hamid with the force of a slug. “Harry, tell them to check mine as well.”

“What?”

“A couple hours before extraction, Davood asked to borrow my TACSAT. Said his was charging in the Humvee.”

“Who’d he need to call?”

“I had asked him to coordinate satellite resources with CENTCOM so that we could keep an eye out for Iranian reinforcements. He was back at the vehicle for thirty minutes or more.”

Silence from the other end of the line. Then Harry spoke, slowly and reluctantly. “I’ll pass it on. Remember, nothing of this to Davood or anyone else. Just keep an eye on him and get back Stateside.”

“Yeah. I’ll do that.”

5:23 P.M. Local Time

Gaza

A stainless steel bottle about the size of a liter of soda sat on the kitchen table of the small apartment. So small, yet so deadly.

Fayood Hamza al-Farouk took another sip from the cup of tea in front of him and regarded the man sitting across from him with an appraising glance.

“Will it work?”

“To be sure,” the young man he knew only as “Rashid” replied, sounding offended. “The device can be armed forty-eight hours in advance-once the internal timer reaches zero, the bacteria will be dispersed in an aerosol cloud.”

“And if the infidels manage to find the canisters before that time?” Farouk demanded, his voice taking on a peculiar intensity.

The young man responded with an expansive shrug. A pair of packets lay on the table between them and he shoved one of them across to the Hezbollah terrorist. “Plastique,” he replied simply. “Manufactured in the 1980s.”

Both men knew what that meant. In the early ‘90s, Europe’s explosive manufacturers had started adding a detection taggant to their plastic explosives, a volatile chemical which slowly evaporated from the explosive and could be detected by bomb-sniffing dogs. Explosives made before then did not have such a chemical agent, although then one had to deal with explosives that were well past their guaranteed shelf life of ten years. In cases like this, the trade-off was worth it.

“I will use these to render each device tamper-proof,” he said. “There is only one concern. Would the bacteria be then rendered impotent in the heat of the explosion?”

“You believe that we would not have thought of this?” Farouk asked, glaring across the table. Frankly, having to explain details to a subordinate nettled him. “This strain of y. pestis is more heat-resistant than anything we have ever seen before. It will survive the explosion. Just make sure they cannot be disarmed.”

With a grim smile, the young man held up both his hands in front of his bearded face. All ten digits remained. The mark of either a very skilled or a very lucky bombmaker. Only time would tell.

“Inshallah,” Farouk breathed. As Allah wills it…

12:49 P.M. Eastern Time

CIA Headquarters

Langley, Virginia

“The software has been reconfigured,” Ron Carter announced, gesturing to the phone on the desk. “His caller I.D. will show the call originating from Bulgaria, the personal office number of Vladimir Dubosky.”

“And that is?” Harry asked, looking from Ron to the director and back again.

“The pimp, or whatever you call somebody running male prostitutes. He’s a Russian, Mafia capo that got caught in the losing end of a Moscow gang war in the mid ‘90s. Fled to Bulgaria and apparently went into the sex trade.”

The DCIA leaned forward “Here’s the deal you’re to offer him, Harry. He has two choices-he can be unhelpful and we’ll send the body of our information to the Ayatollah. Or he can play ball.”

“That’s the stick,” Harry nodded. “Where’s the carrot?”

“If his information is of value, we’ll arrange for his safe passage to a country that looks more kindly on men of his ‘persuasion’.”

Harry snorted. “Great. We’ve got a CIA operator with ties to Hezbollah and now we’re cutting deals with a pedophile. Another wonderful day at the office.”

“I can have someone else place the call,” Lay responded with a shrug.

A grim smile crossed Harry’s lips and he shook his head. “No, I’ll do it.”

“Good.” The CIA director rose and headed toward the door of the conference room. “I’ll be in my office.”

Harry picked up the phone and hit SEND. The call took only a couple moments to connect and then a man’s voice came on the line. “Vladimir?”

9:51 P.M. Tehran Time