The Solomon Effect (28 page)

By the time Rodriguez reached Rock Creek Park, the first
flakes of snow had begun to drift down from the heavy sky. He cut quickly through the trees, to where the wide arch of Boulder Bridge soared over the rocky stream, the bridge a swath of hard gray against a quickly whitening backdrop of slender, snow-covered beech and gently rolling hills.

The snow did not please him. But the flakes were big and wet, and would soon melt. He would like to have arrived sooner, to set up an early watch; but Colonel Sam Lee had not yet arrived.

Stationing himself in the shadow of the bridge’s abutment, Rodriguez had not long to wait before the Colonel came hurrying down the path toward him. Reaching the bridge, Lee looked around nervously, his shoulders hunched, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his parka. Rodriguez watched the man pace nervously back and forth, and decided the General was right: Lee was becoming a danger.

Rodriguez stepped from behind the stand of dogwood that grew near the end of the bridge. Colonel Lee was about to become the victim of another mugging in Rock Creek Park.
Jax stood at the entrance to the Grand Ballroom of the Renaissance Washington Hotel, where a myriad of tiny white lights sparkled above linen-draped round tables set with gleaming white china. Emaciated women in
haute couture
and wicked high heels mingled with self-satisfied men in hand-tailored Italian suits or ribbon-encrusted uniforms, their voices a low roar of polite chitchat or earnest networking. Vast urns of peach-colored roses and orange lilies filled the air with a heady perfume and served as an unwelcome reminder that today was Halloween.

Jax paused next to his former stepfather. “Don’t you get tired of this sort of thing?”

Paul Ginsburg laughed. “Some people enjoy getting shot at. I enjoy…this.”

Jax’s gaze fixed on the far side of the room, where Sophia Talbot, luminous in Armani green silk, laughed with the current secretary of the treasury, who just happened to be ex-husband number five. “Isn’t it awkward, constantly finding yourself in the same room with your ex-wife and her various other ex-spouses?”

“Actually, we’ve formed something of a club.”

Jax made an incoherent sound deep in his throat and said, “Better introduce me to the General, quick, before she sees me.”

General Gerald T. Boyd turned politely at their approach. He was a big man, well over six feet, with the brawny torso and tan, weathered face of a man who believed that just because he’d reached the rank of lieutenant general was no reason to stop jumping out of airplanes and charging over obstacle courses with the toughest of his men.

“It’s a privilege to meet you, General,” said Jax, shaking his hand. “A real privilege.”

“Excuse me,” said Ginsburg, moving on.

“I ran into an old associate of yours the other day,” said Jax, when the General made as if to turn away. “A mercenary by the name of Carlos Rodriguez.”

The General swung back to face him. The faint, polite smile of a politician never left his lips, but his eyes were cold and hard and decidedly hostile. “I think the Major prefers to think of himself as a private military company contractor.”

“Any idea who’s contracting his services these days?”

“Right now? No.”

“What can you tell me about him?” said Jax, lifting a mimosa from the tray of a circling waiter.

“Rodriguez? He’s a fine soldier, and an outstanding American. I’ve never known him to take on an assignment he couldn’t accomplish. Why do you ask?”

Jax took a slow sip of his drink. “I’m afraid Rodriguez and his boys have been involved in some recent incidents that weren’t exactly laudable.”

“Oh? Where was this?”

“Kaliningrad.”

Jax watched the General’s face. Boyd had obviously learned long ago to control every muscle of his face, every gesture, every nuance of stance and movement. But he couldn’t hide the gleam of lethal rage that flashed in the depths of his steel-gray eyes. “You must have him confused with someone else.”

“I don’t think so.” Jax raised his glass and took another swallow. “You’re certain you’ve no idea who he might be working for?”

“Sorry. I can’t help you.” Boyd shifted his gaze to the far side of the room. “Excuse me.”

Jax was still standing there, sipping his mimosa, his gaze following the General’s determined progress across the crowded room, when Ginsburg walked up to him.

“Think he’s involved?” said Ginsburg.

Jax drained his glass. “He’s involved.”

Like Division Thirteen, the archives of the ODIS lay deep in
the basement of the Old Building at Langley. The air was dank, the false ceiling of stained acoustical tiles low, the fluorescent lights humming an endless, maddening note. Tobie walked up to a high, battered counter and peered over it. From here she could see rows and rows of ladened metal shelves that stretched endlessly into the gloom. No one was in sight.

She cleared her throat. “Hello?”

A man who had been bent over at the far end of the counter straightened with a jerk, and she understood why Matt and Jax called Herman Mudd the Bowling Ball. Short, and as round as he was high, the archivist had a shiny bald head with sparse, nearly invisible eyelashes and eyebrows. His skin was pale and pink from a lack of sunlight, and while she doubted he’d been around since the days of the OSS, he was doubtless coming up rapidly on retirement age.

He rushed toward her, pale plump hands waving, tongue clucking in annoyance. “No, no, no! You are not allowed to lean over the counter! Get back, please.”

Tobie jerked back. Not exactly an auspicious beginning. She gave the angry man a broad smile. “You’re Mr. Mudd, right? How do you do? It’s such a pleasure to meet you. I’ve heard you’re very particular about the way the legend archives are run. It’s always a pleasure to work with a professional.”

Herman Mudd cleared his throat and blinked at her rapidly, like a man who wore contact lenses but had never quite gotten used to them. “Yes, well…what do you want?”

She breathed a long, troubled sigh. “I’m hoping you can help me. I need to see the file on the legend given to a German processed in late 1945. A man by the name of Dr. Martin Kline.”

“1945? Those records aren’t computerized, you know. I’d have to look him up in the ledgers.”

She parodied surprise. “Oh?”

He stared at her solemnly. “May I see your authorization?”

“Authorization? But…These records aren’t classified, are they?”

“No. But you can’t expect me to show these records to just anyone who asks to see them.”

Since Langley was hardly open to the public, she didn’t see how she could be described as “just anyone.” But she swallowed a rising spurt of frustration and said, “The problem is, I need this information
now.
”

Mudd turned away. “Without authorization, I’m afraid I can’t help you. Good day.”

Tobie resisted the urge to reach out and grab him and haul him back. Instead, she huffed another sigh. “I guess this means Jax wins.”

Mudd paused to look back at her. “I beg your pardon?”

“That dirty rat. He bet me I wouldn’t be able to get the information I need.”

Mudd blinked ten times in rapid succession. “Who are you talking about?”

“Jax Alexander. I know it’s not your fault. It’s just that he’s such a sneaky, lying cheat, I was hoping I could show him up for a change. Give him a taste of his own medicine. But…” She let her shoulders slump. “I guess he wins.”

“Jax Alexander wants this information?”

“Not exactly. He just doesn’t want me to get it.” She started to turn away.

“Wait!” Mudd flung out one of his pale, plump hands. “What did you say this German’s name was?”

“According to the records in the archives, Dr. Martin Kline was officially processed by the OSS in September of 1945,” said Tobie. They were sitting around the battered old table in Matt’s office. Tobie had a stale roll and a cup of lukewarm tea from the cafeteria; Jax was still in a suit that looked as if it cost as much as the entire contents of Tobie’s closet.

“I can’t believe you got all this out of Mudd,” said Matt.

“Using Jax’s name worked like a charm.” She flipped open her notebook. “Kline’s new identity was Dr. Marvin Clark. You’re right about the time-honored tradition of bureaucratic red tape. He signed for everything from a new birth certificate to a social security number and fake degrees. And then, in November, they issued new birth certificates for his wife, who changed her name to Caroline, and to his baby daughter, Hannah.”

“That must have been part of the deal he struck,” said Jax. “The U.S. government got his family out of Eastern Germany, and he went to work for them. When and where did he die?”

“He didn’t. He’s still alive. I Googled him. He’s ninety-three years old, and he published an article in
Scientific American
just last year.”

“An article? On what?”

“Colony Collapse Disorder in bees.”

“Bees?”

“Bees. They’re his hobby.” She frowned down at her notes again. “He worked at Fort Detrick until 1967, then moved to Boston and became a professor of biochemistry at MIT.”

Matt said, “But he didn’t have a degree in biochemistry.”

“He did by the time the OSS got through with him. That’s what they gave him, rather than an MD.”

“Nice.”

“When he retired from MIT in 1988, he moved back to Maryland.”

“Any particular reason?”

“That’s where his daughter and grandchildren live. She works at Fort Detrick herself, although for a while she was assigned to the human genome project for the Department of Energy.” Tobie looked up. “What I don’t understand is why the genome project is under the Department of Energy.”

“For the same reason the Manhattan Project was,” said Jax. “Because this is not about making people’s lives better. It’s about killing them more efficiently.”

Matt said, “Kline’s daughter is a scientist, too?”

Tobie nodded. “Dr. Hannah Clark. She has a Ph.D. in biochemistry. A real one.”

Jax loosened his tie and unbuttoned the collar of his dress shirt. “I wonder how much she knows about what Daddy did in the war.”

“She may not know anything.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. You remember what that Communist from Dachau said in those old reports Andrei gave us? About helping load Kline’s files and medical specimens on an American truck? Somehow, I can’t see Kline shipping all his discoveries off to the Far East on U-114. He must have kept some of the pathogens with him at the camp.”

Tobie stared at him. “You think the U.S. government brought the Dachau pathogen back to the States with Kline??”

Matt said, “It makes sense.”

“But…Then why would Rodriguez and Boyd—or whoever we’re dealing with—need to salvage U-114?”

“Maybe they tried to get their hands on the government’s stock and couldn’t.” Jax pushed to his feet. “See if you can get someone at Fort Detrick to talk to us—preferably Kline’s daughter. October and I will head up to Maryland and see what we can get out of Kline.”

Matt glanced at the clock. It was already a quarter past nine. “You’d better hurry.”

General Gerald T. Boyd settled back into the comfortable
leather seat of the aircraft provided for his particular use by the United States government, and nodded to his aide, Phillips. “Let’s go.”

Phillips looked at him in surprise. “We’re not waiting for Rodriguez?”

“Rodriguez has some business to attend in Maryland.”

After thirty years of special ops, Boyd knew that the success of an operation always depended upon the ability to improvise and remain flexible. Which was why he’d decided to send Rodriguez up to Maryland today.

Originally, they’d planned to quietly eliminate the German, Kline, in a few weeks, when the old man’s death—and any possible speculation that might arise from it—would be lost in the chaos of the plague sweeping the world. But the situation had changed. The man needed to be silenced, now.

Boyd was not pleased with Rodriguez’s recent performance. It was bad enough the way he’d screwed up with the Russian kid. But by letting that asshole from Division Thirteen slip through his fingers again and again, he’d seriously jeopardized the operation.

The most critical segment of the operation—the actual release of the pathogen—would be carried out by Walker himself, with Boyd and Phillips as backup. That segment was simply too crucial, and too delicate, to delegate. Besides, Boyd had learned long ago that the best way to run a black op was to keep each stage carefully compartmentalized, with the men working on one stage kept ignorant of both the details of the other stages and the big picture.

Rodriguez knew about the U-boat and about the pathogen it carried. He now knew about the German, Kline. That was it; the rest of the operation was outside the parameters of his briefing. But Boyd had decided that once the project was completed, Rodriguez would need to be eliminated, too. The man had outlived his usefulness.

Only three people knew the scope of the entire operation: Boyd, Walker, and Phillips. And even Phillips, as Boyd’s aide, was clueless about the origins of the venture. The man sincerely believed he and Boyd were working on another dirty but legitimately authorized black op. That was the nice thing about secret projects: they were so easy to keep hidden from everyone—the public, the press, Congress, even the president. Phillips was Boyd’s creature and always would be. But Walker…

This whole brilliant project had originally been Walker’s idea, although he’d lacked the expertise and the dirty contacts required to pull it off. That’s why he’d come to Boyd. It didn’t matter. Once the pathogen was released, Walker would be silenced, too.

Boyd didn’t believe in loose ends.

Frederick, Maryland

Turning off the Interstate at Frederick, Jax drove through idyllic farmland of gently rolling fields and quiet canals.
Here, away from the city, the sky was a cold, crisp blue. The home of the man once known as Dr. Martin Kline turned out to be a neat white Federal two-story with green shutters and acres of pasture that sloped down to a stream edged with beech and white oak.

“Nice place,” said Tobie as Jax parked his 650i BMW on the broad gravel sweep before the door. They had not phoned ahead.

A thickset housekeeper with sleek black hair and a heavy accent pointed them toward an almond orchard, where a tall, bone-thin man in a white boiler suit with a veiled hood was tending a hive of bees.

“Dr. Marvin Clark?” said Jax as they walked up to him.

“Yes?”

Jax drew his real, genuine, official CIA ID from his pocket and held it up. “I know you’ve seen one of these before, Dr. Kline.”

The man behind the veiled hood stood very still, a frame crawling with bees gripped in both hands. “What do you want?”

“The answers to some questions. Last Saturday, someone salvaged a World War II-era U-boat that sank off the coast of Denmark in March 1945. Amongst its other cargo, U-114 carried samples of a pathogen you isolated at Dachau and called
die Klinge von Solomon.
The Sword of Solomon.”

The old man slid the frame back into the hive and carefully replaced the inner and outer covers. Only then did he take a step back and shove the hood off his white head. His face was long and bony, with deeply wrinkled flesh and dark brown eyes that blinked several times.

“Who?” he said, his voice husky, his German accent still there despite the long passage of years. “Who has it now?”

“We don’t know,” said Tobie, carefully watching his face. “That’s what we’re hoping you can help us with.”

His gaze shifted to her. “You think I had something to do with this?”

Jax said, “Who else knew the pathogen was on that U-boat?”

Kline shook his head. “How would I know? Surely there have been many with access to the records over the years.”

“All official records related to U-114 were lost in the war,” said Jax. “As far as we can tell, the only person with any knowledge of the submarine’s cargo is you.”

Kline stared off across the rolling pastureland to where a stand of oak turned a vibrant gold and rust beneath the pale blue autumn sky. As Tobie watched, a quiver moved across the sunken features of his face.

She said, “Has anyone approached you recently? Someone interested in your research at Dachau?”

He shook his head, his lips pressed into a thin, flat line. “No. No one.”

“No one?” said Jax.

“No one.” Reaching down, Kline picked up his hive tool and smoker. “I know what you think when you look at me. You see a monster. You judge me by what I did in Germany, in the war. You think I should have been hanged at Nuremburg, with the others.”

When neither answered him, he began to walk across the field, toward another stand of hives near the creek. “You tell me this: Why is the work I did for Hitler wrong, and what I did for your government acceptable?”

Keeping pace with him, Tobie said, “You deliberately exposed men to a disease you knew would probably kill them.”

He swung to face her. “I did, yes. And what of the American doctors who infected four hundred prisoners in Chicago with malaria in 1940? Or those who exposed African Americans in Virginia to a fungus they hoped to develop
into a race-specific weapon? Do you think they should be hanged, as well? How about the presidents who authorized their experiments?”

He glanced at Jax. “And you. Your CIA released Type Two dengue fever in Cuba, and supplied Saddam Hussein with West Nile Virus, sarin gas, and anthrax to use against Iran. And now? Now the United States is spending billions to develop a new generation of genetically engineered bioweapons with no possible cure.” He swiped the air before him, as if brushing away a bee. “Don’t talk to me about war crimes.”

“Is that true?” Tobie whispered to Jax as Kline took off across the pasture again with the long-legged stride of a man half his age.

Jax said, “I’m afraid so.”

“You think what some madmen are doing now makes what you did sixty years ago all right?” said Tobie, stomping after him. “Maybe you think it would be a good thing if that pathogen were let loose on the world.”

At the edge of the second set of hives, he turned to face her again, his smoker billowing a cloud of fragrant wood smoke around them. As she watched, all the anger and aggression seemed to leach out of him, leaving him looking older than before. “No. In that, you are wrong. I am not proud of the work I did when I was younger—either for Hitler or for your government. We were vain, foolish men, ignorant of so many of the secrets of life and human diversity. I understand now what the Sword of Solomon would do to the world. You think I want that to be my legacy? My gift to my grandchildren?”

“Then tell us who salvaged that U-boat.”

He slipped the veil over his head again and turned toward the new hives. “What I am about to do is likely to agitate my little friends. If you are averse to being stung, I suggest you leave.”
“Think he’s telling the truth?” said Tobie, leaning against the side of Jax’s convertible.

Jax stared off across the fields, to where they could see Kline gently prying the cover off a new hive. “Not entirely.”

“So what do we do?”

Jax pushed away from the car. “We go talk to his daughter.”