The King of Plagues

“Carl?”

H. Carlton Milhaus was a very old and very dear friend, and an associate in a number of business deals in the Middle East.

“Jesus, Charlie … have you read your e-mail? The club e-mail.”

“No.”

“Log on, for Christ’s sake. We all got it. Call me later. I think we need to meet.”

Milhaus would not explain, so Harrington switched on his computer and when it was ready he used an ultrasecure log-on to access the e-mail account shared by the twenty-one members of his private club.

Harrington spotted the e-mail at once. The sender was listed as Private. The subject read: To the House of Bones.

Harrington licked his lips and opened the e-mail. It read:

The tomb of the Pharaoh’s son has been open.

The firstborn son of Pharaoh fell to the wrath of Heaven.

To defy Heaven’s will is to feel divine wrath.

Woe to the firstborn sons of the House of Bones.

The Angel of Death rises again.

The Angel of Death left its seed in the flesh of the Pharaoh’s son.

Science, the new magic, will raise the Tenth Death from the Dust.

“My god!” Harrington gasped. He reached for his cell and called Carlton Milhaus. Forty minutes later Harrington was aboard his private helicopter, hurtling through the skies toward a meeting with the other twenty members of the Inner Circle of the Skull and Bones Society.

Chapter Forty-seven

Jenkintown, Pennsylvania

December 19, 1:49 P.M. EST

Amber Taylor was thirty-five but looked older. Living under the terrible stress of the Spaniard’s threats had aged her, chopped sharp edges into her face and made her look like a refugee from a war-torn country. In a very real sense, I suppose she was.

“Where are your children?” Circe asked as soon as we were inside.

“In the basement playroom,” Taylor said quickly, but as she said it she took a reflexive step to stand between us and the door to the cellar. “They’re watching a video. They … don’t know.”

I glanced around. We stood in a short entry hall. There was a tall faux Ming vase from which a hockey stick, a pool cue, and a baseball bat sprouted. She caught my look. “In case,” she said.

The woman had grit.

Circe guided Taylor into the living room. “Mrs. Taylor,” she said quickly, “we are going to help you. Captain Ledger has his team coming. They’ll be here any minute. They are military Special Forces and they can protect you and your children from anyone.”

Taylor did not look immediately relieved.

“He said that they would know if I left work, or … picked up the kids. Or anything. He said that they were always watching. He showed me pictures. From here. From inside the house —”

“Don’t worry about that anymore. I set up a jammer. They’re not seeing a thing.”

“He’ll know that I did something.” The fear in her voice was like a poison fog that clung to the air around her. I hoped like hell the Spaniard would show up. There were a few things I’d like to discuss with him. And then I wanted to rip his fucking lungs out.

“‘He’?” Circe asked. “Do you mean the man who threatened you?”

“Yes.”

“What can you tell us about him?”

She described what we already knew. A compactly built man wearing dark clothes and a mask, and who spoke with a Spanish accent. The rest of her story echoed the same horrors we got from Grey. Threats, the knife. The photos of the angels.

“How many pictures did he show you?”

“I … I don’t …” She stopped, dabbing at her eyes while she thought about it. “Maybe twelve of each. Women, and children. Six boys, six girls. I … think they were boys and girls. It was hard to … to …” She shook her head.

Circe looked at me with eyes that were fierce and bright and wet. I could imagine the sickness and rage that she felt. Inside my own head I could feel the Warrior start to howl. Even the civilized Modern Man part of me wanted blood.

“Tell me about what they wanted you to do.”

“It was the fleas … .”

Her company was part of a group of companies working on a government-funded project to develop a lasting treatment for Yersinia pestis. Although the plague was rare these days, there were still cases of it, and there was always the risk of terrorists weaponizing a strain. It was the same argument that justified the testing of Ebola at FIRE.

It was hard to accept it and hard to knock it down, because weaponized bubonic plague would truly be a terrible weapon and one that would be easy enough to distribute. Releasing infected fleas into widespread and uncontrolled animal populations, particularly rats, would do it. Antibiotics could be used to fight the disease, but an outbreak would create panic and would be hard to stop once started. Especially if the rats that were infested with the plague fleas were introduced in areas with large homeless and poverty-level populations. Her company was testing the latest strains of the bacteria on rat subspecies found in the subway systems of Philadelphia and New York. There were enough infected fleas at Strauss & Strauss to begin a medium-scale epidemic.

“That’s what they wanted me to do. Go into the lab and take canisters of fleas and then drop one in each of ten stations on the Broad Street Line and ten on the Market-Frankford Line.”

“There would be a fairly long lag time between that and an outbreak,” said Circe. “How would they know if you had done what they asked?”

“They said to release fleas in the staff room. Into coats and gloves, scarves, boots.”

“But you did not do that,” prompted Circe.

Taylor shook her head. “I … almost did.”

“What stopped you?”

“There was a video. From a doctor working with Homeland.”

“Dr. Bishop?” I suggested, and she nodded. Score one for Church.

“They said that once I did that they would know right away.”

“Did what? Release the fleas at work?”