The Venetian Betrayal

How many viruses and bacteria had they searched for? Natural organisms that could be used as biological weapons. Something that eliminated an enemy yet preserved a culture’s infrastructure. No need to bomb the population, waste bullets, risk nuclear contamination, or put troops in jeopardy. A microscopic organism could do all of the heavy lifting-simple biology the catalyst for certain defeat.

The working criteria for whatever they found had been simple. Fast-acting. Biologically identifiable. Containable. And, most important, curable. Hundreds of strains were discarded simply because no practical way could be found to stop them. What good would infecting an enemy be if you couldn’t protect your own population? All four criteria had to be satisfied before a specimen was cataloged. Nearly twenty had made the grade.

He’d never accepted what the press reported after the Biological Toxin Weapons Convention of 1972-that the United States quit the germ-warfare business and destroyed all of its arsenals. The military wouldn’t discard decades of research simply because a few politicians unilaterally decided it was the thing to do. At least a few of those organisms, he believed, were hidden in cold storage at some nondescript military institution.

He personally found six pathogens that met all of the criteria.

But sample 65-G failed on every count.

He first discovered it in 1979, within the bloodstream of the green monkeys that had been shipped for experimentation. Conventional science then would never have noticed, but thanks to his unique virology training, and special equipment the Iraqis provided, he found it. A strange-looking thing-spherical-filled with RNA and enzymes. Expose it to air and it evaporated. In water, the cell wall collapsed. Instead, it craved warm plasma and seemed prevalent throughout all of the green monkeys that came his way.

Yet none of the animals seemed affected.

Charlie Easton, though, had been another matter. Damn fool. He’d been bitten two years prior by one of the monkeys, but told no one until three weeks before he died, when the first symptoms appeared. A blood sample confirmed 65-G roamed through him. He’d eventually used Easton ’s infection to study the viral effects on humans, concluding the organism was not an efficient biological weapon. Too unpredictable, sporadic, and far too slow to be an effective offensive agent.

He shook his head.

Amazing how ignorant he’d been.

A miracle he’d survived.

He was back in his hotel room at the Intercontinental, dawn coming slowly to Samarkand. He needed to rest, but was still energized from his encounter with Karyn Walde.

He thought again about the old healer.

Was it 1980? Or ’81?

In the Pamirs, about two weeks before Easton died. He’d visited the village several times before, trying to learn what he could. The old man was surely dead by now. Even then he was well up in age.

But still.

The old man scampered barefoot up the liver-colored slope with the agility of a cat, on feet with soles like leather. Vincenti followed and, even through heavy boots, his ankles and toes ached. Nothing was flat. Rocks arched everywhere like speed breakers, sharp, unforgiving. The village lay a mile back, nearly a thousand feet above sea level, their current journey taking them even higher.

The man was a traditional healer, a combination family practitioner, priest, fortune teller, and sorcerer. He knew little English but could speak passable Chinese and Turkish. He was a near-dwarf with European features and a forked Mongol beard. He wore a gold-threaded quilt and a bright skullcap. Back in the village, Vincenti had watched while the man treated the villagers with a concoction of roots and plants, meticulously administered with an intelligence born from decades of trial and error.

“Where are we going?” he finally asked.

“To answer your question and find what will stop the fever in your friend.”

Around him, a stadium of white peaks formed a gallery of untouched heights. Thunder clouds steamed from the highest summits. Streaks of silvers and autumnal reds and dense groves of walnut trees added color to the otherwise mummified scene. A rush of water could be heard somewhere far off.

They came to a ledge and he followed the old man through a purple vein in the rock. He knew from his studies that the mountains around him were still alive, slowly pushing upward about two and a half inches a year.

They exited into an oval-shaped arena, walled in by more stone. Not much light inside, so he found the flashlight the old man had encouraged him to bring.

Two pools dotted the rock floor, each about ten feet in diameter, one bubbling with the froth of thermal energy. He brought the light close and noticed their contrasting color. The active one was a russet brown, its calm companion a sea foam green.

“The fever you describe is not new,” the old man said. “Many generations have known that animals deliver it.”

To learn more about the yaks, the sheep, and the huge bears that populated the region was one of the reasons he’d been sent. “How do you know that?”

“We watch. But only sometimes do they pass the fever. If your friend has the fever, this will help.” He pointed to the green pool, its still surface marred only by an array of floating plants. They looked like water lilies, only bushier, the center flower straining through the shade for precious drops of sunlight. “The leaves will save him. He must chew them.”

He dabbed the water and brought two moist fingers to his mouth. No taste. He half expected the hint of carbonate found in other springs of the region.

The man knelt and gulped a cupped handful. “It is good,” he said, smiling.

He drank, too. Warm, like a cup of tea, and fresh. So he slurped more.

“The leaves will cure him.”

He needed to know. “Is this plant common?”

The old man nodded. “Only ones from this pool work.”

“Why is that?”

“I do not know. Perhaps divine will.”

He doubted that. “Is this known to other villages? Other healers?”

“I am the only one who uses it.”

He reached down and pulled one of the floating pods closer, assessing its biology. It was a tracheophyta, the leaves peltate with the stalk and filled with an elaborate vascular system. Eight thick, pulpous stipules surrounded the base and formed a floating platform. The epidermal tissue was a dark green, the leaf walls full of glucose. A short stem projected from the center and probably acted as a photosynthetic surface because of the limited leaf space. The flower’s soft white petals were arranged in a whorl and emitted no fragrance.

He glanced underneath. A raccoon tail of stringy, brown roots extended out in the water, searching for nutrients. From all appearances, it seemed a well-adapted species.

“How did you learn that it worked?”

“My father taught me.”

He lifted the plant from the water and cradled the pod. Warm water seeped through his fingers.

“The leaves must be chewed completely, the juice swallowed.”

He broke off a clump and brought it to his mouth. He looked at the old man-rapier eyes staring back quiet and confident. He stuffed the leaf in his mouth and chewed. The taste was bitter, sharp, like alum-and terrible, like tobacco.

He extracted the juice and swallowed, almost gagging.