“So you’re saying Bahame’s just filling them full of cocaine and religious imagery, then setting them loose?”
“It’s not the only explanation, but it’s sure as hell the most straightforward.”
“What about the parasite angle?”
Smith shrugged. “I’m not ready to rule it out. You could have a carrier that doesn’t present symptoms and lives somewhere humans don’t go very often. Then, every hundred years or so, someone gets bit or eats some undercooked bush meat and they contract the infection.”
“So maybe it cropped up again recently — Bahame’s men tend to hide out in remote, unpopulated areas. He saw it, and now he’s figured out how to use it as a weapon.”
Smith opened a drawer and pulled out a file containing everything they had on Caleb Bahame. He was unusually intelligent and, despite being born in a tiny, out-of-the-way village, had spent two years at Makerere University in Kampala. He had been academically eligible for a scholarship to study in London but became prone to ecstatic vision and increasingly violent. Eventually, he’d been expelled.
After that, he’d spent some time as a drug trafficker, switching sides a number of times during his two-year stint in the business. Then he’d fallen off the face of the earth, reappearing five years later as the brutal terrorist and cult leader that he was today.
Smith dug through the pages and turned up Bahame’s college transcript. “He started out as a biology major, but he only got through a few basic classes before he started focusing on religion. Straight As, though…”
“Would it be enough?”
“Bahame’s psychotic, but he’s not stupid. I don’t doubt that he’d know what he was looking at if some kind of biological agent cropped up in his own backyard. But it’s just as likely that he found some natural hallucinogenic in the jungle — particularly in light of his background in the drug trade. In the end, though, I’m just speculating. The behaviors we’re talking about are pretty sophisticated.”
“Sophisticated?” Klein said incredulously. “They acted like a bunch of animals.”
“Maybe, but they were all violent animals going in the same direction and not attacking each other. Think about the chaotic behavior you’d expect from a group with rabies or who had been dosed with LSD. By comparison, these people’s behavior was incredibly well organized and predictable. If I had to bet the farm, I’d say mass religious hysteria enhanced with some locally produced narcotics.”
Klein tossed him the folder he’d been holding. “You’ll be happy to know that the agency analysts agree with you. This is a copy of what Larry Drake gave the White House.”
Smith set aside the information on Bahame and opened the CIA report, paging through a detailed analysis that ranged from African rituals to Pol Pot to Nazi Germany.
“I can’t say that there’s a lot in here I disagree with, Fred. Did the president ask about the possible Iranian connection?”
“Yup.”
“And?”
“Larry was aware of it and gave him perfectly reasonable explanations for the chatter we picked up. Castilla’s satisfied and he left a message calling us off.”
“That’s good news, right? It’s what you wanted?”
“Before I heard your friend’s analysis of the video, yes. Now I’m not so sure. If there’s even a one-in-a-million chance that this is something the Iranians could get their hands on and use, I feel like we’re obligated to take a look.”
“And the president?”
“I’m meeting with him later this afternoon to go over Zellerbach’s conclusions and I’m going to ask him to give us a little leeway.”
Smith closed the report and looked up at his boss. “Then I guess I’m about to take an all-expenses-paid trip to Africa. But I’m going to warn you, Fred: what I know about parasites would fit on a postcard. I’m going to have to bring in help.”
“When you get a name, give it to Maggie to check out.”
“And I want to take Peter.”
Klein grimaced. “We have people in Africa I can set you up with.”
“I know, and I’m sure they’re very talented. But Peter’s got something they don’t.”
“What?”
“A perfect track record of keeping me alive.”
19
Mehrak Omidi sat silently in the back of the van, fixated on a small bank of monitors depicting the mob occupying Tehran’s heart.
The demonstration was much larger than their intelligence had predicted, and now it clogged not only Azadi Square but the surrounding streets, effectively shutting down travel through the city center. It was impossible to know if his people’s failure to foresee the scope of this treasonous action was a problem with their intelligence gathering or if the protest had been joined by passersby who had not originally planned on getting involved. The meticulous organization of it, unfortunately, suggested the former.
On the west side of the square, where security forces were weakest, the crowd grew progressively more bold. A rock sailed through the air and bounced off a Plexiglas shield. When there was no reaction, a bottle flew.
International press had been banned, but with cell phones and video, everyone was a reporter. As the director of the Ministry of Intelligence, Omidi had tried everything to create a national communications system that could be selectively shut down, but the technology was too complex and diffuse for any government to control anymore. And, in truth, it was a medium that his staff didn’t intuitively grasp like the resistance did. Iran’s youth — and youth everywhere — seemed to be able to fully exploit every new advance the moment it came online.
The mob lurched toward the police line, and he watched the silent contrails of tear gas arcing through the air. Impact points were quickly abandoned, but the demonstration didn’t dissolve into chaos, as it would have only a few months ago. A group of men carried an injured woman wearing a chador over their heads as their compatriots cleared a path. There was something different in these protests, something that had been building: a calm efficiency that suggested training.
It had been first noted a year ago when small groups within the crowds began holding fast, influencing the people around them, neutralizing the fear that the hopelessly outnumbered police counted on. Now those groups made up more than half the protesters, and with their increase in numbers came a command structure — an invisible hand that led these common criminals as though they were soldiers.
But now that hand was no longer invisible — it was the hand of Farrokh. And, with the help of almighty God, it was about to be severed.
The crowd surged again, directing itself with unlikely precision against the weakest part of the line. Omidi’s finger hovered over a button that would authorize the police to use deadly force as they dropped their batons and replaced them with submachine guns. The crowd closed in, chanting for freedom and democracy but being very careful not to offer any further physical provocation.
As expected, the phone in his breast pocket rang and he took a deep breath before picking up.
“Yes, Excellency?”
The voice of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Amjad Khamenei, contained a hint of panic that caused Omidi’s stomach to burn with anger. Khamenei was a great man, a man chosen by God to lead the Islamic Republic. And yet, these people — these children — spit on him.
“Why don’t you act, Mehrak? This mob has attacked our men; they’ve broken through our line. It is your responsibility to stop them.”