“Damn it,” Harvath replied.
His instincts to send Palmer to stock up on supplies had been well founded. Though he always kept his pantry stocked and would be able to take care of a certain number of visitors for an extended period during an emergency, nobody in their right mind would pass up getting one last crack at the stores before they were overrun and stripped bare. All you had to do was ask anyone in a hurricane zone whether it was better to be two minutes early to the grocery store in advance of a storm, or two minutes late.
“There’s something else,” the Old Man added. “And it doesn’t get repeated outside this room, but President Porter has developed a fever. Out of an abundance of caution, he has been transported to Bethesda Naval Hospital for observation.”
“He said it was just a cold,” Harvath replied. “Has he had contact with anyone who recently travelled to Mecca?”
“He’s the President. He has contact with a lot of people.”
“Including us.”
The Old Man knew what he was suggesting — not that they had potentially infected Porter, but that he may have infected them.
“All the more reason we need to get moving,” said Carlton. “We’ve got a lot of work to do. Let’s start by you giving me an update on what happened in Winchester.”
Harvath walked the Old Man through all of it, with Nicholas filling in where appropriate.
At one point, Carlton stopped him and asked, “What do you think this Helena woman was erasing from that memory card?”
“If I had to guess,” said Nicholas, “I’d say passwords. Damien is a smart man. We should assume he changes his passwords often.”
“But her assignment was to get his password. Period. Once she had done that, why didn’t she send it to Mordechai and pull up stakes?”
“Again, if I had to guess, I’d say she had been accessing Damien’s computer from early on in the operation. Whenever he changed his password, she’d have to recapture it in order to get back in.”
“For what, though?” Carlton pushed. “All the Mossad wanted was the password. They didn’t ask her to extract anything from the man’s laptop.”
Nicholas put up his hands. “I’m the zeros and ones guy. I don’t attempt to assess or explain human motivations.”
“Bullshit, Nick. Stop screwing around. Why do you think she kept hitting his hard drive?”
There was only one answer that came to his mind. “Money.”
Slowly, Carlton nodded. He liked that answer. It was simple. More important, it made sense. “Okay, so let’s say it was money. How does access to Damien’s hard drive make her money?”
“Without seeing his hard drive, I can’t tell you.”
“As we don’t have access to it, why don’t you take a guess.”
The little man shrugged. “I can think of a million ways to monetize what might be on the personal hard drive of a man like Pierre Damien. Was there anything that could be used to blackmail him or other powerful figures? Were there any soon-to-be-released reports about drugs Damien’s pharmaceutical companies were working on? How about the status of pipeline or drilling agreements for his oil or natural gas companies?”
“Okay,” said the Old Man, “but if you know, like Helena, that Damien has something massive planned, something he hopes is going to totally reshape the world, do you really care about some new Alzheimer’s drug, some pipeline deal with Kurdistan, or some nude island frequented by some second-rate British royal?”
“No,” Nicholas answered.
“Why?”
“First of all, if there was any blackmail material on the laptop, she should have been able to find it on her first pass through. That leaves financial material, and you’re right. If Damien is going to crash the world as we know it, there’s no value in knowing about some miracle Alzheimer’s drug or pipeline deal before it happens.”
“Unless,” said Harvath.
Both Nicholas and Carlton looked at him.
“Unless what?” the Old Man asked.
“Unless her goal was to profit from the crash.”
“How?”
“Suppose the Mossad was right,” Harvath continued, “but only half right. Suppose Helena did want out, but that instead of Pierre Damien being her golden ticket, he unknowingly helped her pack her parachute?”
“Meaning what?” Carlton replied. “She was funneling cash from his accounts?”
“No, too easy to get caught. Let’s assume she’s smarter than that.”
“If she was smarter than that, she would have stopped being a honey trap for the Mossad a long time ago.”
Harvath held up his hand. “Damien is a lot of crazy things, but we all agree he isn’t stupid. He’s also a successful businessman — a businessman sitting on the biggest piece of insider information ever. He knows the exact date the world is going to end. Why in God’s name wouldn’t he play that?”
The Old Man’s eyes widened. “Short the market?”
“There are lots of things he could be up to. Helena, though, would have to know where and when to place her bets. She’d need to get out before everything collapsed. That might be why she has been accessing Damien’s laptop. She’s trying to catch a falling knife.”
“Good way to feather your nest if you were planning to leave the Mossad and disappear.”
“Speaking of which,” Harvath replied as his driveway alarm chimed and one of the outdoor camera feeds popped up on his TV. “Sloane’s here with Mordechai.”
“What should we do with him?”
“I think we should read him in on everything we’ve got,” said Harvath.
“Everything?”
He nodded. “All of it.”
CHAPTER 43
Mordechai accepted a cup of tea and moved a bit closer to the fire Harvath had started for him in the fireplace.
As the wood sizzled and popped, he listened to Harvath lay everything out. When he had finished, the first thing that came to mind to say was “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Harvath replied. “All we ask is that you don’t broadcast to your people that President Porter has been taken to Bethesda. If that gets out, it will cause a panic.”
“When it comes to causing a panic, I think there are one or two other things you should be more concerned about.”
“And we are. We just don’t want to contribute to a deteriorating situation.”
“I understand,” Mordechai said. “In the event the President is unable to execute his duties, who takes over? The Vice President, correct?”
“Correct.”
“And if the Vice President happened to become ill?”
“Then the Speaker of the House followed by the President pro tempore of the Senate,” Harvath replied.
“And then cabinet members,” Carlton added. “Secretary of State, all the way down to the Secretary of Homeland Security.”
“Which is where Linda Landon works,” said Mordechai.
Harvath had his laptop open on his desk, and he pulled up the United States Presidential line of succession to show him.
“But if the Vice President is number one,” he said, “Homeland Security is all the way down here at the bottom at number seventeen. And that’s for the current, acting secretary. Not only would he have to fall ill, but so would several other people at DHS before she could ever hope to ascend to the secretary position.”
Mordechai shrugged. “If the virus moves fast enough.”
It was almost too crazy to believe. Sickening everyone above you in order to seize the Oval Office? But maybe there was something to it. Palace coups had used poison throughout history, so why not disease? Was that why Damien was rubbing elbows with all the backbencher bureaucrats? Was it more than just securing the reins of power in the White House? Was it a means by which to control the Federal Government from tip to tail?