“Good point. See what you can find — visas, all of it. And while you’re at it, see what kind of CCTV footage you can get your hands on. The Saudis monitor everything, particularly during the Hajj.”
“Anything else?”
“If Damien did take them back to Congo, I’m betting they were taken to the Ngoa facility. The staff would be able to quietly get rid of the bodies and public health authorities would be none the wiser.”
“But wasn’t the Matumaini Clinic in touch with the WHO representative in Kinshasa?” Nicholas asked.
“They were. Whoever that rep in Kinshasa is, he’s a part of this. He either tipped Damien or the Ngoa lab about their missing patient. That’s probably why he asked for a picture to be emailed. I assume somebody wanted confirmation before Damien sent Hendrik and his men in to kill everyone.”
“If that’s all he needed, why did he ask for blood and tissue samples?”
“Probably,” said Harvath, “because that’s what they normally do. He was smart enough to not break with protocol. If he ever gets called on the carpet, it looks like he followed every step to the letter.”
That made him think of something, and he made a mental note.
While he was doing that, Nicholas brought up a new question, something that had been weighing on him as well.
“We know Damien wants to drastically reduce the earth’s population,” the little man said. “We also know that he’s a eugenicist who believes that certain races and bloodlines are unfit and should be snuffed out.”
“Correct.”
“So if a guy like that launches a global pandemic, how does he control who gets it?”
It was an important question, especially now that the genie appeared to be out of the bottle, but it wasn’t the right question.
When disease was used as a weapon, the intent was for it to go anywhere and everywhere. No place was to be off-limits or safe. The only people meant to survive were the ones who had launched it and whatever subgroup they felt was worthy of living.
To answer Nicholas’s question, Harvath replied, “He doesn’t control who gets it. What he controls is who doesn’t get it.”
“So there’s some sort of an antidote?”
“Or a vaccine.”
“But based on the ‘Outcome Conference’ document that Mordechai told you about,” Nicholas said, pushing back, “the Plenary Panel’s goal is to skin the earth’s population from over seven point two billion down to five hundred million. That’s a ninety-three percent drop. How do you do that?
“I mean, we’ve got a pretty good idea of how they want to get the six and a half billion — plus people infected, but how do you save the others? How do you not only give an antidote or a vaccine to five hundred million people, but the right five hundred million, the ones you want to see survive? And on top of that, how do you do that without them knowing what the hell is going on?”
They were terrifying questions, none of which Harvath had answers for. He couldn’t even begin to fathom how the world wouldn’t collapse with a die-off of over six point five billion people. There’d be nobody to bury the bodies, much less maintain civil order.
Even the Black Death, said to have been the most devastating pandemic in history and estimated to have claimed up to fifty percent of Europe’s population, was no comparison to this. Weaponized African Hemorrhagic Fever would not only blow it away, it would take the lead for worst calamity ever on earth, second only to the extinction of the dinosaurs.
If there was one thing Harvath knew, it was that Mother Nature moved fast, while science moved very, very slowly. If they couldn’t get out in front of this virus, billions of people were going to die.
Looking up from his computer, he wasn’t thinking about himself. He was thinking about Lara and protecting her, as well as her little boy and her parents back up in Boston.
There was also his own mother out in California, as well as others he had always promised he would never let anything happen to.
The magnitude of the task pissed him off. Not because he had to figure how to take care of so many people so important to him, but because he had been put in this position in the first place by an insane, agenda-driven asshole like Pierre Damien.
Harvath knew that there was a special place in hell for a man like Damien; he just hoped the President would let him send him there.
As Nicholas went through the rest of his checklist, Harvath’s mind was going in multiple directions. He had been taught to think in layers, to make plans for contingencies — if not that, then this. What are my routes of attack and avenues of escape?
He found himself needing not only to focus on his work, but also on the people he cared about. It was the very position he had always said he never wanted to be in. Yet, here he was.
While the SEAL mottos about perseverance and never giving up floated to the forefront of his mind, so did another saying. You can’t always choose the situation you find yourself in, but you can choose how you react to it.
His mother had said it to him a million times growing up. She said it so often it drove him crazy to hear it. But he had never forgotten it, its wisdom timeless and invaluable.
“Scot?” Nicholas said, trying to regain Harvath’s attention.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“I asked how the hell Damien planned on immunizing five hundred million people. And then when you didn’t answer, I said that if anyone could get it out of him, it’d be you.”
“Only if the President sees this the way we do.”
“How could he not?”
“He’s the President. He operates at a completely different level of calculus. There are always other factors. I think he gets it, though.”
“He’d better,” replied Nicholas.
“Listen, one other thing. When we ran Damien, there were mentions about his involvement in pharmaceutical companies. See what you can find. If there is some sort of antidote or vaccine, there may be some connection there.”
“Got it.”
Harvath was about to reassure him when another call came in.
It was the Old Man.
CHAPTER 36
Harvath’s plans for Lara were shelved as soon as Carlton called and told him he was wanted at the White House. In all fairness, the morning was actually already shot the moment he heard from Nicholas that there was a third likely case of African Hemorrhagic Fever in the United States.
He hated to leave her alone at his place, but she was a big girl, and it wasn’t like he had any choice. Guests did not bring guests to the White House, and especially not under the circumstances by which he had been summoned.
He had barely gotten a sip of coffee before he had to dash upstairs and hop into the shower. Lara playfully offered to join him, and it took all he had to turn her down and ask for a rain check.
After a quick shampoo and running soap over his body in record time, he used his perpetually fogged “fogless” shower mirror to shave and then threw the water from hot to ice-cold and forced himself to stand there for thirty seconds. If he wasn’t fully awake before, he definitely was now. It was like downing three rapid espressos.
When he stepped out of the shower, he found that Lara had picked out an outfit for him. All he had told her was that he had to go to the White House. That was all she needed to know. What she chose was perfect — dark suit, white shirt, dark tie.
“Is it like this every morning?” she asked as he moved through the kitchen and kissed her.
“That’s the President for you,” he said. “Can’t live without me.”