“Supposing he is actually there, could we somehow lure him into the village and then force him to take us back up to the top with him?”

A quiet ping echoed in Harvath’s mind as if his mental radar had bounced back off something he had been searching for. “I like the idea of using him to get us inside, “He said, “but it’s still too dangerous. With a man like the Aga Khan, money is no object, especially when it comes to security. His people will be the absolute best. They know that the funicular is the only way to get to Aiglemont, and they will have anticipated every possible covert and forced use of it to gain access to the Château. For all we know there’s even two sets of passwords to get the operator up top to start it moving-one for everything’s okay and another for start her up, but I’m bringing company so have the men ready and waiting when we get there. We’d never know. If we do this, it can’t involve the funicular.”

Jillian was growing frustrated. Harvath was the professional, and he wasn’t offering any suggestions of his own. All he was doing was sitting there, drinking his beer, and shooting down every plan she came up with. Jillian decided to give it one final try. “What about a glacier plane? That meadow looked long enough to land one on. Or what about a helicopter?”

“Too noisy,” said Harvath, without even considering it.

“You know what then?” replied Jillian, tired of trying to help when all of her ideas were being shot right down. “You figure it out. I’m not going to sit here and be made to feel like an idiot for my suggestions.”

“The only reason you haven’t heard me suggest anything, “He replied, “is because I don’t always spit out the first thing that comes to my mind.”

“At least we’re clear on how much you value my input,” said Jillian, her annoyance building to serious anger. “You know what, Scot? I have no idea how you handle problem solving in your line of work. I’m not an intelligence operative. I don’t know anything about the military. I’m a scientist. All I know is that as a scientist, I try to rule out the simplest possible answers first and then proceed to the more difficult ones from there. And when working with colleagues on problems, we scientists do spit out what first comes to mind. It’s a rather radical process called brainstorming.”

Whether it was the insult that shook it loose or not, once again Harvath felt that ping in the back of his mind. It was that feeling of familiarity about Aiglemont. “The simplest possible answer, “He repeated to her. “You’re right.”

Suddenly, Harvath had his answer. He knew why Aiglemont and its security felt so familiar to him, and he also knew how he was going to get inside. But all of it was going to ride on cashing in on one very big favor.

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

OFFICE OF INTERNATIONAL INVESTIGATIVE ASSISTANCE

WASHINGTON, DC

Brian Turner. You’re absolutely sure?” asked CIA director James Vaile as he sat in Gary Lawlor’s office, admiring an oil painting of George Patton.

“I know what I saw,” replied the head of the OIIA. “He and Senator Carmichael were both in that hotel together.”

Vaile took another sip of his coffee before responding. “This is pretty serious stuff-for everyone involved.”

“That’s why I wanted to talk to you about it here, away from Langley.”

“You know, we normally like to handle our own problems in-house,” said Vaile.

“Except your problem has become the president’s problem.”

That was true, and it was also something the CIA director didn’t have an immediate answer for. “What do you suggest we do?”

“As far as the CIA as a whole?” responded Lawlor. “Nothing. But I do want you to make it harder for him to get hold of his information. Let’s see how good he really is.”

“It could compromise us in a lot of ongoing operations.”

“No, it won’t. At this point they’re baiting for only one type of fish. I don’t want there to be any indication that we’re on to them. In the meantime”-he paused as he reached into his desk and withdrew a small envelope containing a CD-ROM-“I’d like you to plant this information for me.”

“What is it?”

“Open it up when you get back to your office and you’ll see. Let’s just say that I think it will prove irresistible. Make sure you bury it deep enough that it appears authentic, but not so deep that he’ll never find it.”

“Consider it done,” said Vaile as Lawlor’s assistant walked into the room and handed him a message.

Right away, the CIA director could tell something was seriously wrong. “What is it?”

Lawlor looked at his watch and replied, “In three hours, the president is going to convene a National Security Council meeting in the situation room. We just got word that our mystery illness has officially made its debut in the United States.”

“Jesus,” said Vaile as he set down his cup. “Where and how many infected?”

“The trail starts with a Muslim food importer by the name of Kaseem Najjar in Hamtramck, Michigan, and extends to several UPS workers throughout their processing and delivery system beginning in Michigan and ending in Manhattan. The FBI, as well as teams from the CDC and USAMRIID, are already en route.”

“Do we know if it was intentionally released? Are there any more victims?”

“Apparently, that’s all they know. Hopefully, we’ll have more information by the briefing this afternoon.”

“We’d better have more than just information. You saw how fast that thing moved through that village in Iraq,” replied Vaile, already racing through worst-case scenarios in his mind. “If we don’t get a handle on this, the death count is going to be astronomical. It’ll make the plague look like an outbreak of strep throat-” Vaile was interrupted by a text message that came over his secure pager.

This time it was Lawlor’s turn to read his friend’s visage and inquire as to what was going on.

Looking up from his pager, the director of the CIA said, “The president’s chief of staff is looking for me.”

“Chuck Anderson? Why?”

“They’re concerned that a major offensive with the illness could already be under way and that it’s only a matter of hours before they start seeing casualties inside the Beltway. He wants to talk about moving the president out of DC.”

“If a major offensive is under way, this thing could turn up anywhere. Where do they want to move him?”

Vaile set down his pager. “They want to greenlight the doomsday scenario.”

“Operation Ark?”

The DCI nodded his head. “ Anderson is going to recommend that the president, the cabinet, Congress, and everyone else on the continuity of government shortlist be evacuated to the underground facility at Mount Weather.”

Lawlor was quite familiar with the emergency command and control continuity of government center built more than a mile beneath the surface of an antenna-studded mountain in northwest Virginia near the West Virginia border. It was a top-secret, self-sufficient subterranean city designed during the Cold War to withstand multiple direct hits from the biggest and baddest nuclear weapons America’s most serious enemy, the Soviet Union, might ever unleash. Whenever the media reported the president or members of the government being evacuated in times of crisis to a “secure and undisclosed” location, nine out of ten times it was Mount Weather. “That’s what Anderson ’s paid for,” replied Lawlor, “to plan for the worst.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Vaile. “He’s planning for the worst, all right. The president has already initiated the Campfire Protocol. We’ve got bombers and fighter jets being outfitted with nukes as we speak. “Pausing for a moment to consider what America was on the verge of becoming, he slowly added, “I pity any location in this country that shows signs of this illness taking hold.”