“You’re sixty years old. Bachelor of science from the University of North Carolina, in biology. Master’s degree from Duke University. A doctorate in virology from the University of East Anglia, the John Innes Centre, in England. Recruited there by a Pakistani pharmaceutical firm with ties to the Iraqi government. You worked for the Iraqis early on, with their initial biological weapons program, just after Saddam assumed power in 1979. At Salman Pak, north of Baghdad, operated by the Technical Research Center, which oversaw their germ search. Though Iraq signed the Biological Weapons Convention in 1972, Saddam never ratified it. You stayed with them until 1990, just before the first Gulf War went to shit in a handbasket for the Iraqis. That’s when they shut everything down and you hauled ass.”
“All correct, Ms. Nelle, or do I get to call you Stephanie?”
“Whatever you prefer.”
“Okay, Stephanie, why am I so interesting to the president of the United States?”
“I wasn’t finished.”
He motioned again for her to continue.
“Anthrax, botulinum, cholera, plague, ricin, salmonella, even smallpox-you and your colleagues dabbled with them all.”
“Didn’t your people in Washington finally figure out that was all fiction?”
“May have been in 2003 when Bush invaded, but it sure as hell wasn’t in 1990. Then, it was real. I particularly liked camel pox. You assholes thought it the perfect weapon. Safer than smallpox to handle in the lab, but a great ethnic weapon since Iraqis were generally immune thanks to all of the camels they’ve handled through the centuries. But for Westerners and Israelis, another matter entirely. Quite a deadly zoonosis.”
“More fiction,” Vincenti said, and she wondered how many times he’d voiced the same lie with similar conviction.
“Too many documents, photos, and witnesses to make that cover story stick,” she said. “That’s why you disappeared from Iraq, after 1990.”
“Get real, Stephanie, nobody in the eighties thought biological warfare was even a weapon of mass destruction. Washington could not have cared less. Saddam, at least, saw its potential.”
“We know better now. It’s quite a threat. In fact, many believe that the first biological war won’t be a cataclysmic exchange. It’ll be a low-intensity, regional conflict. A rogue state versus its neighbor. No global consensual morality will apply. Just local hatred and indiscriminate killing. Similar to the Iran/Iraq War of the nineteen-eighties where some of your bugs were actually used on people.”
“Interesting theory, but isn’t that your president’s problem? Why do I care?”
She decided to change tack. “Your company, Philogen Pharmaceutique, is quite a success story. You personally own two point four million shares of its stock, representing about forty-two percent of the company, the single largest shareholder. An impressive conglomerate. Assets at just under ten billion euros, which includes wholly owned subsidiaries that manufacture cosmetics, toiletries, soap, frozen foods, and a chain of European department stores. You bought the company fifteen years ago for practically nothing-”
“I’m sure your research showed it was nearly bankrupt at the time.”
“Which begs the question-how and why did you manage to both buy and save it?”
“Ever hear of public offerings? People invested.”
“Not really. You funneled most of the start-up capital into it. About forty million dollars, by our estimate. Quite a nest egg you amassed from working for a rogue government.”
“The Iraqis were generous. They also had a superb health plan and a wonderful retirement system.”
“Many of you profited. We monitored a lot of key microbiologists back then. You included.”
He seemed to catch the edge in her voice. “Is there a point to this visit?”
“You’re quite the businessman. From all accounts, an excellent entrepreneur. But your corporation is overextended. Your debt service is straining every resource you possess, yet you continue onward.”
Edwin Davis had briefed her well.
“Daniels looking to invest? What’s left, three years on his term? Tell him I could find a place on my board of directors for him.”
She reached into her pocket and tossed him the jacketed elephant medallion. He caught the offering with a surprising quickness.
“You know what that is?”
He studied the decadrachm. “Looks like a man fighting an elephant. Then a man standing, holding a spear. I’m afraid history is not my strong point.”
“Germs are your specialty.”
He appraised her with a look of conviction.
“When the UN weapons inspectors questioned you, after the first Gulf War, about Iraq ’s biological weapons program, you told them nothing had been developed. Lots of research, but the whole venture was underfunded and poorly managed.”
“All those toxins you mentioned? They’re bulky, difficult to store, cumbersome, and nearly impossible to control. Not practical weapons. I was right.”
“Smart guys like you can conquer those problems.”
“I’m not that good.”
“That’s what I said, too. But others disagree.”
“You shouldn’t listen to them.”
She ignored his challenge. “Within three years after you left Iraq, Philogen Pharmaceutique was up and running and you were a member of the Venetian League.” She watched to see if her words spurred a reaction. “That membership comes with a price. Quite an expensive one, I’m told.”
“I don’t believe it’s illegal for men and women to enjoy one another’s company.”
“You’re not the Rotary Club.”
“We have a purpose, quality members, and a dedication to our mission. Sounds like any service club I know of.”
“You still never answered my question,” she pointed out. “Ever seen one of those coins before?”
He tossed it back to her. “Never.”
She tried to read this man of commanding girth whose face was as deceptive as his voice. From everything she’d been told, he was a mediocre virologist with an ordinary education who had a knack for business. But he may also have been responsible for the death of Naomi Johns.
Time to find out.
“You’re not half as smart as you think you are.”
Vincenti smoothed back a rebellious lock of his thin hair. “This is becoming tiresome.”
“If she’s dead, so are you.”
She watched again for a reaction and he seemed to be weighing the minimum truth he could voice against a lie she’d never tolerate.
“Are we finished?” he asked, still with a warm cloak of politeness.
She stood. “Actually, we’re just getting started.” She held up the medallion. “On the face of this coin, hidden within the folds of the warrior’s cloak, are microletters. Amazing that ancient people could engrave like that. But I checked with experts and they could. The letters were like watermarks. Security devices. This one has two. ZH. Zeta. Eta. Mean anything to you?”
“Not a thing.”
But she caught a moment when his eyes flickered with interest. Or was it surprise? Perhaps even a nanosecond of shock.
“I asked some experts on Old Greek. They said ZH means ‘life.’ Interesting, wouldn’t you say, that someone went to the trouble of engraving tiny letters with such a message, when so few at the time could have read them. Lenses were practically unknown in those days.”
He shrugged. “Doesn’t concern me.”
VINCENTI WAITED A FULL FIVE MINUTES AFTER THE PALAZZO’S front door closed. He sat in the salon and allowed the quiet to ease his anxiety. Only a rustle of caged wings and the clicking of his canaries’ beaks disturbed the stillness. The palazzo had once been owned by a bon viveur of intellectual tastes who, centuries ago, made it a central location for Venetian literary society. Another owner took advantage of the Grand Canal and accommodated the many funeral processions, utilizing the room where he sat as a theater for autopsies and a holding place for corpses. Later, smugglers chose the house as a mart for contraband, deliberately surrounding its walls with ominous legends to keep the curious away.