“Of course,” Piola said, grinning. His stake in several mining companies and an oil development partnership was hidden, but they would be very lucrative once the contracts started falling their way.
“And how did you find this tomb in the first place?” he asked. “Surely archaeologists have been looking for anything like this for the last century at least.”
“No doubt,” Shakir said. “Except that there is almost no record of this place. We learned of it only after an archaeologist on the antiquities board brought us several fragments of papyrus. That led us to search for items the French and British took, but the key was found on the bottom of Aboukir Bay. It told of how Akhenaten brought the bodies of the old pharaohs from their tombs and moved them to new places where they could be illuminated by the rising sun. And how the priests of Osiris considered this an abomination. They one-upped Akhenaten, stealing the sarcophaguses of the twelve kings in the burial chamber and bringing them here before Akhenaten’s people got to them.”
“And how did you discover the Black Mist?”
“The tablets from Aboukir Bay led us here,” Shakir explained. “The writings we found led us to the secret of the Mist. They told us how the priests of Osiris sailed once a year to the Land of Punt to recover what they needed to make the serum. Of course we had to modify it, but that led us to ways of improving it.”
“Which are?”
Shakir chuckled. “Be glad I haven’t slipped and told you, Alberto, otherwise I’d have to feed you to the crocodiles.”
Piola held up a hand. “Never mind. I just hope your demonstration was enough to convince our friends that resisting will only get them killed.”
“I’m sure it has,” Shakir said confidently. “But the question is: what happens afterward? Libya is fractious. It would be helpful if you were able to push through a vote in your parliament establishing a protectorate over the country once it has fallen apart. A joint Egyptian — Italian operation would allow us to enforce order.”
“We need more votes,” Piola said. “I can’t get them without something to offer. I need another shipment of the Mist to replace the one that was destroyed on Lampedusa. If we can coerce ten additional ministers, the vote will swing our way. We may even be able to form a new government with me as Prime Minister.”
Hassan broke in. “A new batch is being prepared,” he said. “But it’ll do no good if the Libyans reject our help. Even though they appear to be teetering, they refuse to fall.”
Shakir nodded. “We need to make it worse for them.”
“Can you?” Piola asked. “I understand that the main sources of water have been shut off, but some of the smaller stations are still producing. And there’s a large desalinization plant near Tripoli that’s been running at full capacity.”
“I’ll have someone put that plant out of action,” Shakir said. “And we can boost our draw on the aquifer, running the pumps continuously instead of in spurts. In twenty-four hours, the Libyans won’t have a cup of water to share, let alone enough to fight over.”
“That should break them,” Piola agreed.
Hassan approved. “And it’ll give us an excuse to move in. Much better if our soldiers are seen bringing water to thirsty families instead of storming in with guns drawn.”
Shakir nodded. Thousands more would die. Maybe tens of thousands. But the end result would be the same. Egypt would control Libya. Egyptian proxies would control Algeria and Tunisia. And Shakir would control them all.
“So it’s agreed,” Piola said. “In that case, I’ll leave for Italy immediately.”
Before anything else was said, a hardwired phone buzzed. Hassan answered it. He spoke briefly and then hung up. His face looked grim.
“That was Security at the hydroelectric plant,” he said. “They’ve had a breach. They’ve been looking for an intruder without success. But they’ve just discovered that one of the tramcars is missing. They found it in the tunnel, a hundred feet from the Anubis access point.”
Shakir pursed his lips. “Which means they don’t have an intruder. We do.”
Kurt walked into the Mars-like landscape, enduring waves of heat from the glowing red lamps.
“This is our incubator,” Golner said.
“Incubator for what?” Looking around, all he saw was desiccated soil, with hundreds of little mounds protruding from it in a precise geometric pattern. “What are you growing in here?”
“Nothing’s growing,” the biologist said. “Sleeping. Hibernating.”
“Show me.”
Golner led Kurt to one section of the room, stepped off of the path and crouched down beside one of the small mounds. With a garden trowel, he brushed away the loose soil and dug out a softball-sized dirt clod. He scraped the soil from the sphere and then began peeling a layer off of it.
Kurt half expected a squirming alien creature. But as the outer layer was removed, it revealed a bloated, semimummified frog or toad.
“This is an African bullfrog,” the biologist said.
“I saw hundreds of those in the catacombs.”
“This one is alive,” the biologist said. “Just dormant. Hibernating. Like I said.”
Kurt considered the statement. In colder climates, things hibernated in the winter, but in Africa going dormant was a way to survive the droughts. “Hibernating,” Kurt repeated, “because you stuck him in the mud and turned on the heat?”
“Yes, that’s correct. The excess heat and lack of humidity cause the frogs to enter a survival mode. They burrow into the mud and grow extra layers of skin, which dry up and seal them in like a cocoon. Their bodies go dormant, their hearts virtually stop beating and they become entombed, with only their nostrils remaining clear so they can breathe.”
Kurt was astonished. “This is where the Black Mist comes from? Dormant bullfrogs?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“How does it work?”
“In response to the dry conditions,” Golner explained, “glands in the frogs’ bodies produce a cocktail of enzymes, a complex mix of chemicals, that triggers dormancy at the cellular level. Only the lowest part of the brain remains active.”
“Like a human brain in a comatose state.”
“Yes,” the biologist said. “It’s almost identical.”
“So you and your team extracted this chemical cocktail from the frogs and modified it to be effective on human biology.”
“We adjusted the chemicals to be effective on larger species,” Golner said. “Unfortunately, that shortens the shelf life. If it’s frozen at subzero temperatures, it can be kept indefinitely. But at room temperature it will become inert in eight hours. When released into the air, it will dissipate within two to three hours, breaking down into simple organic compounds.”
“That’s why they found no trace of it on Lampedusa,” Kurt said.
Golner nodded.
“That’s a very short-lived weapon,” Kurt noted.
“It wasn’t supposed to be a weapon. Not at first. It was a treatment. A way to save lives.”
Kurt didn’t really believe that, but he let the man explain. “How so?”
“Doctors use medically induced comas all the time. For trauma victims, burn victims and others who’ve experienced tremendous injuries. It’s a way to allow the body to heal. But the drugs are very dangerous. They’re damaging to the liver and kidneys. This drug would be natural, less harmful.”
He sounded like a true believer and a man trying to convince himself both at the same time.
“I hate to say it, Brad, but you’ve been sold a bill of goods.”
“I know,” Golner replied. “I should have known anyway. They kept asking about methods of delivery. Could it be dissolved in water? Could it be disbursed in the air? There was no medical reason to ask such questions. Only weapons need be distributed in these ways.”