Halabi finally turned and began descending the spiral steps that provided access to the minaret. His injuries forced him to use the stone walls to steady himself, but he was grateful for the struggle. Every stabbing pain, unbalanced step, and constricted breath reminded him of his arrogance and God’s punishment for it.
As expected, Muhammad Attia was waiting patiently for him on the mosque’s main floor.
“What of Mitch Rapp?” Halabi asked as Attia fell in alongside him.
“There’s still no sign of him, and our sources say that the Saudis are planning to bomb the area out of concern over the biothreat. I’ve been forced to move our men into the hills immediately surrounding the village.”
“Do I detect disapproval in your voice, Muhammad?”
“Disapproval? No. But concern. Our resources are limited and risking the few reliable men we have in hopes that Rapp will appear in an empty, burned-out village . . .”
“He’ll come,” Halabi assured him.
“Even if he does, how much are we willing to risk over one man?”
Halabi didn’t answer, instead exiting the mosque and winding through the narrow cobbled paths between buildings. Near the center of the village, they entered a tall, slender structure with rows of arched windows and a ground floor lined with diesel generators. After descending another set of stone steps, they crossed into a room that had been built inside a natural cavern.
Despite the fact that he’d been personally involved in its design, the environment inside the room was disorientingly foreign. It was a long, rectangular space, with smooth white walls and rows of overhead LEDs that glinted dully off stainless steel biotech equipment arranged beneath.
The machinery had been extremely difficult to acquire and transport but the effect was exactly as he’d envisioned. The impression was of a medical research lab that would look at home in London, Berlin, or New York. Videos made in this room would be disseminated online, fanning the West’s fear into full-fledged panic and intensifying the chaos already present in America’s political system.
He turned his attention to the only thing in the room that wasn’t modern and polished—a sheep’s diseased carcass lying on a cart near the center of the room. As promised, the matted hair and dried blood around its nose and mouth contrasted terrifyingly with the sterile environment.
Halabi’s cane thudded dully as he walked the length of the room, finally finding the three Westerners near the back. They were huddled together on the floor beneath the watchful eye of an armed guard. None made a move to stand as he approached, instead staring up at him with expressions that were easily read. The German’s face reflected calm resignation. Bertrand’s, in contrast, projected desperation and terror. Finally, the American woman was consumed with hate.
It was exactly the reaction he’d expected. While social media was one of the most powerful weapons ever devised by man, it wasn’t that platform’s ability to disseminate false information that was useful to him at the moment. It was other people’s willingness to use it to strip themselves of their secrets. The intimate knowledge he had of these three infidels would have been impossible only a few years ago. Organizations like the FBI, Stasi, and KGB had spent billions on wiretaps, physical surveillance, and informants to learn less than he could with a few keystrokes.
Halabi understood their hopes and motivations. Their strengths and weaknesses. Their allegiances and the subtle dynamics within those allegiances. Enough to assign each of them a very specific role in the drama that was unfolding.
“Who are you? Why are you keeping us here?”
As expected, Victoria Schaefer was the first to speak. And while he had a strong distaste for dealing with women, there was no alternative in this case.
“I am Sayid Halabi.”
The recognition was immediate. Some of the defiance drained from the woman’s eyes, and the Frenchman appeared to be on the verge of fainting. The German, as was his nature, seemed unaffected.
Halabi swept a hand around the room. “All this is for you. So that you can build a biological weapon.”
“A biological weapon?” Schaefer said after a brief silence. “I’m a doctor. Otto’s a nurse. And Gabriel’s a scientist who researches how to stop diseases. Not how to cause them.”
“The skills are the same,” Halabi said, and then pointed at the dead sheep. “It was taken from a flock infected with anthrax. The bacteria are simple to incubate and weaponize. It’s my understanding that a second-year biology student could do it.”
She stared at him for a few seconds and then began slowly shaking her head. “No way in hell.”
There was a time when he would have immediately turned to violence in order to coerce them. Now, though, he understood that this tendency was just another facet of his arrogance. Less an opportunity to carry out God’s plans than to vent his own hate. And while the time for savagery would undoubtedly come, it hadn’t yet arrived. Manipulation was the secret to victory in the modern world. Not force.
He turned his attention to Gabriel Bertrand, the weakest and most knowledgeable of the three. “I assume you’re aware that while anthrax is a simple weapon to create, it’s not particularly effective. In order to contract a deadly form of it, you’d have to inhale the spores and then not seek the widely available antibiotics capable of curing it. I’m a terrorist, yes? Isn’t that how your government and media portrays me? If this is true, then it’s my goal to spread terror, not death. I’ll use you and this equipment to create propaganda videos—”
“Like the one you made in the village,” the woman said, cutting him off. “You sealed innocent women and children in their homes and burned them alive. And now you want us to believe that all you want to do is a little marketing?”
“What you believe isn’t important to me. Only what you do.”
• • •
After a life dedicated to battle, the scene playing out in front of Halabi seemed laughably banal. The Crimean documentary filmmaker whose artistry had thus far exceeded all expectations was now entirely in his element. He had the three Westerners dressed up in elaborate hazmat suits and was orchestrating their every movement as they dissected the sheep. Lighting was constantly adjusted, camera angles were tested, close-ups were taken and retaken. He’d even experimented with some rudimentary dialogue, though it was unclear whether he thought it would be dramatic enough to make the final cut.
For their part, the three Westerners seemed content to play along. And why not? In their minds, nothing they were doing was real. Much of the equipment, while impressive looking, wasn’t fully assembled or even relevant to the task of producing anthrax. The elaborate computer terminal they were pretending to consult wasn’t plugged in. For now, they would be allowed to believe that they were nothing more than actors trading performances for survival.
The truth, though, was so much grander.
With biology, God had created a class of weapon infinitely more powerful than anything ever devised by man. Halabi now understood that pathogens and the skillful manipulation of information were the only weapons that mattered in the modern era. While the Western powers spent trillions maintaining massive armies and involving them in meaningless skirmishes, he had assembled the tools necessary to set fire to the earth.